Lew Dickey Buying Back In?
It appears that former Cumulus President & CEO Lew Dickey is well on his way to returning to media ownership — his new company, Atlanta-based Modern Media Acquisition Corp. just raised a reported $207 million in its initial IPO of 18 million units at an offering price of $10.00 per unit. Modern Media Acquisition Corp. is described as “a blank check company formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization, recapitalization or other similar business combination with a target company.” And what does Mr. Dickey intend to do with this IPO money, we asked knowingly? “The Company intends to seek a target company with an enterprise value of approximately $500 million to $1.5 billion. The proceeds of the offering will be used to fund such business combination.” And there you have it. You are advised to watch this space for further developments, especially given the fractious state of the radio industry, what with the upcoming Entercom/CBS Radio deal, and iHeartMedia’s looming debt issues… to name a few potential factors. And possibly some Cumulus properties up for grabs at some point?
Dickey resigned his position as Vice Chairman of the Cumulus board of directors in late March, right around the time his 18-month non-compete agreement expired. Now he plans to use the IPO proceeds to buy a target company. Modern Media Acquisition Corp. stock began trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market as “MMDMU” last Friday.
