| MSG Puts Fuse On the Block Sep 13th 2013, 22:04, by DAVID LIEBERMAN, Financial Editor This should relieve investors who feared that Madison Square Garden Executive  Chairman Jim Dolan‘s decision to invest $125M in an entertainment partnership with music manager Irving Azoff would leave the sports and entertainment company strapped for cash. MSG says that it has been “approached by certain parties expressing interest in Fuse and [has] retained JP Morgan to explore all strategic alternatives” — which usually means a sale. The music channel reaches 73M pay TV homes, and distributors pay an average of 8 cents per month for each home. Fuse could sell for about $300M, Credit Suisse analyst Michael Senno figures following Al Jazeera’s agreement to pay $500M for Current TV which collected about 11 cents per sub from distributors. That would “more than offset capital used in recent investments” including the Azoff deal and a $25M investment in Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas. Stifel analyst Benjamin Mogil also notes that Fuse could command a healthy price because its deals with distributors would enable a buyer to reprogram the network to offer “anything other than live sports.” Many MSG shareholders are eager to see the company return cash to them, possibly by repurchasing shares. |
No comments:
Post a Comment