Fifteen years ago, the biggest radio broadcasting industry story involved a proposed acquisition and privatization of the predecessor of iHeartMedia. The effort resulted in Clear Channel Communications coming under control of two key investors — Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners.
The privatization of Clear Channel would ultimately prove to be one of the most financially challenging transactions of the 2000s, coming just as the “Great Recession” of 2008 severely impacted various radio companies. For Clear Channel, some $20 billion in debt had been realized by February 2016.
Fast-forward seven years, and iHeartMedia is in a much healthier financial place. Much of that is linked to CFO and COO Rich Bressler, a former Managing Director at Thomas H. Lee Partners and a key individual involved in closing the $26.7 billion deal.
Now, Bressler and a legion of former colleagues are processing the still-unfolding details surrounding the self-inflicted death of Lee, whose name will be forever linked to transactions involving Univision and Clear Channel but was not actually tied to at the time the deals were finalized.
