Big City selloff nears the end

Big City Radio (A:YFM) announced two more cluster sales, bring total proceeds from its station selloff to $202M, with one pair of stations in Chicago yet to go. Nassau is the buyer in New York and Spanish Broadcasting System (O:SBSA) got one of the Chicago station clusters.

First, Big City announced the sale of its four suburban stations surrounding New York to Lou Mercatanti's Nassau Broadcasting for $43M. The four stations - - all on 107.1 mHz - - encircle the city. They're actually located in the Nassau-Suffolk, Westchester, Monmouth-Ocean and Allentown-Bethlehem Arbitron markets. As such, they fit well with the suburban focus of Nassau, whose current stations are all in New Jersey and adjacent areas of Pennsylvania. This deal will add nearby areas of New York to the mix.

Brokerage honors for the New York sale were split between Mark Jorgenson of Jorgenson Broadcast Brokerage, for Big City, and Glen Serafin of Serafin Bros., for Nassau.

In addition, Big City announced the sale of three of its five Chicago stations to Raul Alarcon's SBS. For $22M in cash, SBS is getting the trimulcast operation on 92.5 and 92.7 mHz. RBR had previously reported (12/19 RBR Daily Epaper) that SBS and Hispanic Broadcasting (N:HSP) were likely to split Big City's Chicago holdings. The buyer for the simulcast on 103.1 mHz in Chicago is the only part of the Big City sell-off yet to be announced.

As with all of the sales, Big City was represented by broker Mark Jorgenson of Jorgenson Broadcast Brokerage.

Along with the previous sale of its Los Angeles stations to Entravision (N:EVC) for $137M (12/26 RBR Daily Epaper), Big City has now booked $202M in station sales - - with the final sale in Chicago yet to go.

RBR Observation:

Initial worries that the auction of Big City's station auction might leave nothing for shareholders after paying off its $174M in bonds (which are in default) and $9.8M in past-due interest have been proved unfounded. The market for major market radio stations - - even the weaker suburban signals that accounted for most of Big City's portfolio - - is still extremely robust.