Unidentified Analyst: Okay. And then on — so then the financial question. For 2024, do you have expectations yet for what the contribution of political advertising might be and your expectation and expectation — and our ex-political EBITDA kind of range for looking year ahead?
Alfred C. Liggins: Yes. We are going through it right now. We are in the middle of our budgets. It won’t be as robust as ‘22 because we had the Georgia Senate runoffs there, and we got a lot of money for that. But we think political for our radio business would give us probably some sort of double digit millions — let’s call it, $10 million of revenue. And again, that’s the early start on our budget. And it was kind of like 18 in ‘22, but we got literally $6 million in Atlanta alone in ‘22, largely due to the Senate races.
Peter D. Thompson: That was in ‘20. 18 in ‘20 of which 6 was in Atlanta and then we did 13 in ‘22.
Alfred C. Liggins: Thank you for clarifying, of which 4.5 was in Atlanta, so still half was in Atlanta, the 6 in the previous cycle in Atlanta.
Operator: And next we go to Matt Swope with Baird. Please go ahead.
Matt Swope: Yes. Good morning, Alfred and Peter. Maybe just to continue on some of the same themes. Alfred, where would you like your leverage to be? You’ve given us some numbers in the past, but where are you comfortable, where you think you’re sort of out of harm’s way, regardless of what the economy does?
Alfred C. Liggins: I don’t know, because harm’s way keeps changing, right? I would say that — I like our leverage with a 3 handle on it. I think we’re probably going to finish the year at — call it 3.8, something like that. And I’d like us to march — get down into the low-3s, so but I don’t — I’ve got no interest in levering up the Company to take a swing at something that I think is a good. There was a time when you could lever up these companies and make the assumption that your leverage is going to come down really quickly and therefore, you can take some execution risk on something but that’s when you’re dealing with businesses that are growing on a consistent basis, meaning that the macroeconomic profile of these businesses, the market is growing.
And that used to be the radio business, and that used to be the TV business. And you can count on that. Those aren’t those businesses — these aren’t those businesses any longer. So, we’re of a mindset that we wouldn’t do that. So, that’s the reason I kind of started off the conversation today talking about we are looking at debt pay-downs.
Matt Swope: No, I appreciate that. And you guys have definitely done about as good a job as anybody in the industry at that.
Alfred C. Liggins: I appreciate it. I mean, look, we got a lot to lose. The family has a lot to lose, if you have a misstep, right? And we’re 40-plus years old. And so, we’re — sometimes the equity holders aren’t aligned with the debt holders. But we are aligned with the debt holders in this instance because it’s really about being safe and preserving your viability. Right?
Matt Swope: Sure. No, that makes sense. And as you think, Peter, about the buyback part of this, I guess a couple of questions. With all the cash — I guess, one would be, could you give us a cash update as of where it is today? And then, as of where it is today, but then two would be what’s the minimum cash you need on the balance sheet? At times it’s been like $510 million. Do you need to have more cash on the balance sheet than that?
Peter D. Thompson: Look, we were talking about that a week or so ago. I think probably 50 is a decent number. Could it be lower than that? Yes. We got some lumpy payments from a coupon standpoint, obviously that goes down if we buy back debt, but obviously the semi-annual coupon is chunky. And then some of the TV One programming deals can be somewhat chunky. Probably a range is 30 to 50 in terms of what we really need on the balance sheet, so obviously we’ve got a lot more than that. Cash on hand today, I think it’s $227.5 million approximately. And that is obviously after we’ve made the Houston acquisition, which was $27.5 million. So, that’s where we are on that.
Matt Swope: As you think about — sorry…
Peter D. Thompson: Go ahead.
Matt Swope: I was going to say, as you think about the bond buyback possibilities, given that kind of that you could do something like 150 or 175, or even just going off the numbers you just said, does it make any sense just to do a broader tender for a much bigger number? Are you restricted at all by the fact that you haven’t put your 3Q out yet? Like, do you have to get some physicals out before you can do some of this?
Peter D. Thompson: Yes. Look, if we were doing open market repurchases, I think we would need to do it after Q3 unless we transacted with someone who signed a big boiler ad. So, we were protected in that sense. So, there may be an opportunity to go and find a block and sign up with a big boiler and do some sooner than later. Following that, we’ll file Q3 before the end of the year and then we’ll put a plan in place. I think as Alfred was saying, our kind of — our historic ammo has been to authorize blocks $25 million and have — go out in the market and find us blocks. So I think we’d probably take that path. To your point, if we were going to do $150 million, then I think we would probably look at a tender. I don’t think we’re going to go that route. Not decided yet, but I think Alfred’s direction saying, blocks of up to 25 and see where we’re at.
Matt Swope: Got it. No, that’s certainly helpful. And then, Alfred, is the casino idea dead at this point, or, I know at times you looked at places other than Richmond? Would you look at something else again?
Alfred C. Liggins: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we — it’s a great business. We made a lot of money on our MGM investment. We made like 4.5 times our investment. There’s risk, right? You can over build. Interest rates are higher now. So, that was going to put pressure on the returns. And it’s a political process. And we think that when gaming — getting gaming licenses are — is a political process. And we think we have some advantages there, as — I mean, I think, we’re really the only sort of African-American owned organization that’s really focused on investing in this industry that I know of, on a significant level. So, yes, we would absolutely look at other stuff. I don’t know what’s going to happen. That fifth license is going to go somewhere in Virginia.
We haven’t gotten focused yet to see if there is any way that we can participate on any level. I don’t know which city it would go to and who the players would be. There is potentially iGaming that’s going to come to the State of Maryland. It’s been public knowledge that legislators there are looking to try to move a bill out of the General Assembly, this session. And that’s very different than sports betting, because sports betting is not profitable, but iGaming is. Have no idea how they are planning to administer the iGaming structure and licenses. So what I am seeing is that what they will probably do is send out a bill that would actually put a question on the ballot to pass a reference — referendum to get passed and then figure out what the structure would be.
