NEW YORK, Oct. 6, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting Inc., a leader in ethnic media with 34 radio stations across the U.S., and Radio Unica Communications Corp. (OTCBB:UNCA), a leading Spanish-language radio broadcasting company, today announced a definitive agreement for MultiCultural to acquire substantially all the radio station assets of Radio Unica. Included in the transaction are 15 radio stations in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami.
Multicultural will acquire the station assets for approximately $150 million in cash. Completion of the transaction is subject to bankruptcy court approval, regulatory approvals and other conditions. It is expected that the transaction will be completed by the second quarter of 2004. The transaction will be effected as part of a prepackaged bankruptcy in which holders of the Company's 11 3/4% Senior Discount Notes would receive approximately $700 in cash per $1,000 principal amount, all other creditors would receive 100% of their claims, and stockholders would receive the remainder currently estimated to be between $0.47 and $1.03 per share. Holders of approximately 93% of the Company's outstanding Senior Discount Notes have agreed to support the transaction and vote in favor of the prepackaged bankruptcy.
Arthur Liu, President and CEO of MultiCultural, said, "Our acquisition of the Radio Unica assets will enable MultiCultural to benefit from increased scale, as we will own 49 stations across the United States. Overall, we will strengthen our positions in many major ethnic markets in the U.S. and solidify our position as the leading radio broadcaster of Asian language programming in the country. We have every reason to believe that we will receive all needed approvals to complete the transfer of the Radio Unica assets to Multicultural early next year."
PGP Capital Advisors, an investment banking firm based in Los Angeles, acted as M&A advisor to MultiCultural and assisted in raising the financing associated with the transaction. Stewart M. Kim, Managing Partner of PGP Capital, stated, "MultiCultural is emerging as a leader in the ethnic radio industry and particularly in the Asian-language segment of the industry. With the acquisition of the Radio Unica complementing its core media franchise and significant growth in its cable and print businesses, MultiCultural today is ideally positioned to build the pre-eminent media company in the U.S. specializing in serving the Asian language demographic."
About MultiCultural
MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting, Inc. is a leading ethnic media company. MultiCultural owns 34 AM and FM radio stations covering ethnically diverse markets in the U.S. with programming in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese and other languages.
About Radio Unica
Radio Unica Communications Corp is based in Miami, Florida and its operations include the Radio Unica Network and an owned and/or operated station group covering U.S. Hispanic markets including Los Angeles, New York, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, McAllen, Dallas, Fresno, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Tucson.