Chris Ripley: Yes, now, Barton we – now that we’ve paid the settlements, there should be no impact to whatever happens to Diamond in the future.
Barton Crockett: Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you very much. Your next question is coming from David Hamburger of Morgan Stanley. David, your line is live.
David Hamburger: Thanks for taking the question. Could you help us with the timing of the income tax benefit, the MSA fee increase and various other considerations with regard to the Diamond Sports kind settlement?
Chris Ripley: So on the tax side, it should be – it depends on when Diamond actually exits, but that will either it have an impact at the end of 2024 into 2025. And the next biggest category is MSA fees and those were already collecting at a higher rate. And we are guaranteed to have at least six months of those post-payments could go longer. But and again, that’s where the previous question about whether Diamond emerges or not could have some impact on whether they – how long they want to be on our management services. I guess this is in fairness to that prior question but at least they’re committed to at least six months and maybe longer after that. And that will happen – that’s obviously time dependent less than 2024.
David Hamburger: Okay, that’s helpful. So post-settlement, it looks like there’s use often most of the cash at the Television Group. I mean obviously, we’ll generate more free cash flow this quarter than there is about $220 million of residual cash at Ventures. Can you help us think about like what’s the minimum cash balance you’d like to maintain? What would be the uses of cash? The $200 million plus cash sitting at Ventures, if you were to use any cash or how you think about allocating as you spoke about assets between the two different silos, how do you envision managing cash between them?
Chris Ripley: Well, there’s a lot of liquidity at SBG, STG as a – does have positive cash on the balance sheet, that cash will build significantly through the rest of this year. It has a fully undrawn over $600 million revolver. So minimum cash for this business is not very high. I’ll let Lucy chime in on that if she wants to give a specific number there. But there is –whatever is coming in the door from here on out what’s on the balance sheet is excess cash could be used for shareholder return and could be used for debt buybacks. As I mentioned before which is the likely priority going forward. And of course, we are as I mentioned at least as it relates to SBG, very focused on transformation and investing in certain areas that will pay off in the years to come.
On the Ventures side, we have been equitizing or monetizing our minority investments, we monetized approximately $50 million in Q1 and we’ll continue to do so. So we’d expect cash to continue to build at Ventures. We’re in no rush to redeploy it. We’re looking for new majority controlled investments that are in fragmented industries with a good secular growth trends. And — but again, no rush to deploy that we’re going to be very disciplined in our approach to the marketplace there.
David Hamburger: Okay. And if I could just one housekeeping question. It sounded like Lucy had said that you are for your interest expense guidance. Previously you were factoring in more Fed cuts than anticipated now. What are you estimating now for that a higher number?
Lucy Rutishauser: David, we always we always model based on the forward curve. So, when we reported back in February, the forward curve had estimated, I want to say it was probably like the Fed was trying indicating a six Fed cuts for the year. Now, I think they’re down to about two. So whatever the forward curve is what we use in our model.
David Hamburger: Okay. Thank you so much.
Operator: Thank you so much. And your next question is coming from Benjamin Soff of Deutsche Bank. Benjamin, your line is live.
Benjamin Soff: Hey guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just a follow-up on the minority investments. I appreciate the commentary that you guys are looking to switch from the minority investments to the majority investments. When I look at your guidance, it implies that there’s not much distributions left for the rest of the year. I’m just kind of wondering, why that would be? And then a house keeping question, could you remind us what the value is of the value stake and then the other pieces of the investment portfolio? I think there was some real estate and some private equity in there. Thank you.
Chris Ripley: So we don’t forecast any monetizations or distributions explicitly. So that’s why you’re not seeing that in any of our projections. So not that’s not to say that we don’t think there will be. In fact there almost certainly will be. But since it’s not something that comes out of a regular operating business that it’s harder to project. Naturally, it’s sort of lumpy. So we do not project and that explicitly, but we do expect there to be further monetizations as the year continues and I’m sorry what was your next question?
Benjamin Soff: Just if you can share the value of the different items in the portfolio?
Chris Ripley: So the Valley stake is currently at 1.55 about. And then when you sum up the rest of the minority assets they’re sitting around $600 million of NAV.
Benjamin Soff: Okay. Thank you.
Lucy Rutishauser: Ben, let me just also clarify because I know historically we’ve given that number including cash to the number that Chris is quoting is excluding the cash that’s sitting at Ventures.
Chris Ripley: Yes, that’s excluding cash Valley stake, you’ve got the investments and then you’ve got cash. They all tested all that tallies up to around $1.1 billion.
Benjamin Soff: Okay got it. And then I guess just a quick follow up. Like would you expect the amount of distributions you get going forward to accelerate as you guys kind of more actively look at that undergoing this transition?
Chris Ripley: Yes. I mean look it is lumpy. As I said that’s one of the reasons we don’t put it in our models and projected, but we’re actively working on several opportunities to monetize those that group of assets that $600 million or so that I mentioned is what in the target lists to be monetized. And I would expect that we do have and some level of monetization continuing through this year.
Benjamin Soff: Okay. Thanks guys.
Chris Ripley: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you very much. That appears to be the end of our question and answer session. I will now hand back over to Chris for any closing.
Chris Ripley: Thank you operator and thank you all for joining us today. To the extent you have any for further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
Operator: Thank you very much. This does conclude today’s conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time. And have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
