Is Clear Channel Communications Preparing For A Chapter 11?
And the uber-leveraged LBO dominoes keep falling. The spotlight now turns to Clear Channel Communications (CCU) which was acquired a brief 6 months ago in July 2008 for $20 billion in one of the biggest LBOs of recent years. In this curious case, sponsors Tommy Lee and Bain Capital were so much in love with their overpriced provider of billboards and radio stations, that they, and the company (which of course knew it was getting a great price for its shares, even at the amended $36/share) sued the banks who were aware they would be unable to place the insane amount of debt needed to complete the LBO (most recently CCU had $19.6 billion of total debt on $2.2 billion of declining EBITDA, or cash flow).
