By Britt Erica Tunick
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| | Mitch Julis: Between Josh and myself, we spanned the spectrum from leveraged buyouts to leveraged die-outs
(Photographs by Bryce Duffy) |
When Radio One, a leading U.S. broadcaster with an African-American, urban audience, wanted to buy out other equity holders to gain a controlling stake in one of its TV properties, it turned to an unlikely place for the money: hedge fund Canyon Capital Advisors of Los Angeles.
Unlike traditional institutional investors, Canyon didn’t need to worry about getting a rating agency’s seal of approval and in February quickly put together a private debt offering of $119 million, collateralized by the assets of the cable TV station being purchased. With a junk-bond-like 10% coupon and a five-year maturity, the deal snared Canyon the kind of returns that hedge funds salivate over.
Canyon, a $20 billion firm (with $17.5 billion in hedge...