Who Will the Financial Crisis Hit Next?
January 1, 2009 by Bill Sobel
Filed under Rants & Raves
From Adweek.com
NEW YORK Tribune Co. recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and National Amusements violated a debt covenant. The moves beg the question: Who, if anyone, could be next in the broader media and entertainment industry?
The global financial crisis has made debt harder to access and more expensive, leaving Wall Street wondering who might run into trouble — and even file for bankruptcy — in 2009.
Besides newspaper companies, Charter Communications, the cable operator controlled by Paul Allen, is high on people’s lists of concerns.
The St. Louis-based company has long been the most indebted major cable firm, with net debt of slightly more than $21 billion as of Sept. 30, and it has said that it might need to go into bankruptcy to deal with that burden.
President and CEO Neil Smit has focused on boosting revenue and operating cash flow, but to survive under its debt pile Charter has refinanced and extended its maturities every year since 2004.
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