Radio Centro Group (GRC), one of the radio companies with the highest income, audience and coverage in Mexico, began a process of divestment of operations in the city of El Paso, Texas, with the sale of three stations to a private entrepreneur with a discrete track record in the broadcasting industry on both sides of the border.
The buyer is the US citizen and accountant Luz María Rygaard, who will be the new owner of the KAMA-AM 750 KHz, KQBU-AM 920 KHz and KBNA-FM 97.5 MHz stations that radiate over the city of El Paso and with a range of neighboring Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Quentius Rygaard, husband of Jalisco Luz María Rygaard, is known in the American entertainment industry.
The stations now for sale belonged until November 2016 to the Univisión network, a television station that then sold them to 97.5 Holdings LLC, 25% directly owned by Grupo Radio Centro, and to 97.5 Investment TX, a company that GRC also controls 75% , but that in Texas it is directed by businessman Rafael Márquez Aguirre.
The transaction between Univision and the companies of the Radio Centro Group agreed in that year for 2 million dollars.
The parties are now just waiting for authorization from the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for Rygaard, with offices in Austin, to take over a station that broadcasts sports content, another with music broadcasts. in Spanish and one more group cut, although it is still unknown if the frequencies will maintain their current formats after the sale has been validated.
It is also not clear whether the concessions of the three issuers were assigned after a payment of $ 10,000, which is the only figure in consideration cited by the document in English that accounts for this entire purchase process between the seller 97.5 Licensee TX, a subsidiary of Grupo Radio Centro in Texas, and the buyer Luz María Rygaard.
The document also states that the controlling company of the issuers maintains a debt of 2.5 million dollars.
There is also a novelty: among the registered offices for the FCC notifications appears the office of Mr. Emilio Raúl Sandoval Navarrete and located in Mexico City, who presents himself as a lawyer for the radio group NRM Comunicaciones.
Radio Center, for its part, registered as notification offices its historic headquarters at Calle Article 123 No. 90 and the address of Montes Urales 425, headquarters of the García Herrera y Asociados office.
If any disagreement occurred between the parties during the process, both the buying party and the selling party chose to resolve their differences in Mexican courts.
Radio Centro’s divestment in El Paso comes after a year of rumors. The company still shows on its official website that it operates the XHTO-FM 104.3 MHz frequency, with musical content in English.
According to the Texas press, Radio Centro was struggling to maintain the audiences and publicity of KBNA-FM 97.5 MHz and KQBU-AM 920 KHz, which turned off transmissions and returned to the air with new formats that were partially attended by the public. The company also faced financial complications with KAMA-AM 750 KHz and decided to sell all three signals after they became non-core assets.
Like the sale of a station in Cancun that occurred a few weeks ago in favor of a member of the Aguirre Gómez family, original owners of Radio Centro, the transfer of the shares of the El Paso stations occurs on the same dates that GRC notifies the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) an early amortization of its Cebures program, now for 28 million pesos and announced this December 21 to the investing public.
In May 2019, it was known that Radio Centro sold its KXOS-FM 93.9 station in Los Angeles for $ 35 million to the Meruelo Media group.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx