iHM Adds Restructuring Advisory Firm To Deal With Debt

(Reuters) -- iHeartMedia Inc has brought in Millstein & Co, an additional restructuring advisory firm, to help it evaluate options for its debt, including buying some of it back, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move underscores the challenges that iHeartMedia faces as it looks to restructure its approximately $21 billion debt pile. The company previously also brought on investment bank Moelis & Co as a financial adviser, Reuters reported in March.

The company, one of the world's largest leveraged buyouts when it was taken private for $26.7 billion in 2008, has struggled to compete for listeners as competitors ramp up their digital offerings. iHeart has also warned in court papers that a legal challenge stemming from some of its senior creditors, largely hedge funds, could send it into bankruptcy.

One of the options that iHeartMedia is now considering as part of alleviating its debt burden is buying back some of its debt, the people said.

The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. iHeartMedia, Millstein & Co and Moelis declined to comment.

Millstein & Co was founded in 2012 by Jim Millstein, who was the chief restructuring officer at the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2009 to March 2011. He is also the top financial adviser to the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in its crisis over approximately $70 billion in debt.

iHeartMedia, which is controlled by private equity firms Bain Capital Partners LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, has been in talks with some of its senior creditors over the company's decision to move shares from one subsidiary to another, which the creditors have claimed is a default.

A trial is scheduled to begin on the matter on Monday in State District Court in Bexar County, Texas.

For the quarter ended March 31, iHeartMedia reported that revenue increased by $41 million, or about 6 percent, from the same period last year, driven mainly by increases in its radio business and political advertising sales.