Emmis Wants Again To Go Private

Indianapolis-based Emmis Corp. is set to ask shareholders this month to approve the company’s plan to buy back its Class A common stock and end a 29-year run as a publicly traded company.

The Indianapolis Business Journal reports Jeff Smulyan, founder and CEO of Emmis, pitched plans to take Emmis private three times from 2006 to 2016 but was overruled by shareholders.

This time, he’s proposing a three-year window to buy back the shares. During the first year following the plan’s approval, Emmis would offer $6 per share. The price would increase to $6.50 during the second year and increase to $7.25 during the third year.

Emmis, which once owned 20 radio stations across the United States, delisted its stock from the Nasdaq Stock Market in 2020. The company’s stock is traded on the over-the-counter market.

Following Monday’s announcement of the buy-back offer, Emmis stock closed at $5 per share—its highest mark since August 2019.

“The company has been delisted for a number of years, and there’s really not a great public market for the stock,” Smuylan told the IBJ on Tuesday.

Jeff Smuylan

The annual meeting of Emmis shareholders is scheduled for Aug. 29 at the company’s headquarters, 40 Monument Circle in Indianapolis. The buy-back proposal would pass with a majority of “yes” votes among those voting. Smulyan owns all of the company’s Class B common stock. He said fewer than 250 shareholders own 10.5 million shares of the outstanding Class A stock.

Through discussions with several shareholders, Smulyan said he believes people are eager to receive a return on their investments.

Emmis sold four Indianapolis radio stations and Indianapolis Monthly magazine in 2022, essentially ending the company’s four-decade run as a media powerhouse. The company is now focused on three assets it has in the fields of e-commerce (Digonex), ergonomics (Lencore) and corporate podcasting (Sound That Brands).

The 1070 AM signal originated from radio towers in nearby Whitestown. Emmis sold land that housed the radio towers in 2021, and Smulyan said additional Emmis property is for sale. The Emmis building on Monument Circle is another asset that could help fund the stock buy-back plan.

“We've been talking to a number of different people, and whoever gets the price, they’ll be the buyer,” Smulyan said of the sale of  ESPN New York 98.7 WEPN and gospel WLIB (1190). “The primary funding would be to sell the AM and FM [stations] in New York. We have some notes outstanding that we will collect from third parties that will give us a significant amount of cash. We have some more real estate in Whitestown that we will sell. Whether we sell the building or not? We’re going to look at all of our options.”