Townsquare Repurchases Just Under 10% of Shares
| RADIO ONLINE | Monday, April 1, 2024 |
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 Townsquare Media |
Townsquare Media is repurchasing and retiring 1.5 million shares of Class A common stock held by MSG National Properties (MSG) for $9.76 per share. The purchase price reflects an 11% discount from the closing price on March 28. The transaction follows Townsquare's June, 2023 repurchase of 1.5 million shares from MSG at $9.70 per share, and March, 2021 repurchase of 12.6 million shares and warrants from Oaktree Capital Management at $6.40 per share.
The purchase price of $14.6 million was funded entirely with cash on hand. In 2023, Townsquare's cash flow from operations increased 35% year-over-year to $68 million, or approximately $4.07 per basic share based on shares outstanding as of March 28. Pro forma for this transaction, cash flow from operations per basic share increased to approximately $4.47, representing accretion of approximately 10%. Following the transaction, the company has 15.2 million shares outstanding.
"We are very pleased to share that we have repurchased just under 10% of our total shares outstanding in an immediately accretive transaction for our shareholders. Since 2021, we have repurchased 16.2 million shares at an average price of $7.19, while simultaneously reducing leverage. The strong cash generation characteristics of our business model, which produced $68 million of cash flow from operations in 2023, has afforded us the opportunity to accretively repurchase equity and debt, while also investing internally in our digital growth engine," commented Townsquare CEO Bill Wilson.
"In addition, we introduced a high-yielding dividend in 2023, and recently increased it by 5%. Our dividend has a yield of 7% as of March 28, 2024," he added. "With a strong cash balance of $40 million following this transaction, we will retain financial flexibility moving forward and we are confident in our ability to build shareholder value for our investors through long-term net revenue, Adjusted EBITDA and cash flow growth, net leverage reduction, future dividend payments, and potential future share repurchases."
