Clear Channel explores sale of European outdoor advertising business: report
11 Nov 2014
Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, one of the world's largest outdoor mass media companies, is exploring options for its European outdoor advertising business, including a sale in order to reduce its parent iHeartMedia's debt.
Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners is among the other buyout firms that have approached Clear Channel with an offer for its European outdoor advertising assets, which could be worth as much as $3 billion, the report said.
iHeartMedia, which was taken private in 2008 by Bain and Thomas H. Lee Partners for $19 billion, holds an 88-per cent stake in Clear Channel Outdoor.
iHeartMedia sold assets in February this year to reduce its debt of $20.5 billion. It sold its 50 per cent in Australian Radio Network to partner APN News and Media for $222.5 million.
Based in San Antonio, Texas, Clear Channel is the second-largest outdoor advertising company behind French rival JC Decaux.
Its more than 760,000 displays reach more than half a billion people in more than 40 countries on five continents, including 48 of the 50 largest markets in the US.
In Europe, it operates in 17 countries, including the UK, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, France, Italy, and Belgium among others.
