Townsquare Media Files For IPO

Townsquare Media, an Oaktree-backed operator of 312 radio stations in small and mid-sized markets, filed on Tuesday with the SEC to raise up to $144 million in an initial public offering.

The company was formerly known as Regent Communications until it filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and Oaktree (63% pre-IPO stake) and GE Capital (18%) took control.

The Greenwich, CT-based company, which was founded in 2010 and booked $294 million in sales for the 12 months ended March 31, 2014, plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol TSQ. Townsquare Media initially filed confidentially on May 9, 2014. BofA Merrill Lynch, Jefferies and RBC Capital Markets are the joint bookrunners on the deal. No pricing terms were disclosed.

After the IPO, the company will be renamed Townsquare Media Inc, it said in a filing.

Townsquare operates websites such as TasteofCountry.com, PopCrush.com, UltimateClassicRock.com and Loudwire.com and provides digital advertising services to music-focused websites such as JustJared.com, HypeMachine.com and ContactMusic.com.

The company's revenue rose 48 percent to $79.2 million in the quarter ended March 31. Net loss narrowed to $530,000 in the quarter from $2.3 million, a year earlier.

Townsquare, which had more than 2,500 employees as of March 31, had debt of about $645 million.