💥Broadcasting Bankruptcy💥
Cumulus Media Inc. Files. STG Logistics Inc. + Buddy Mac Holdings LLC Updates
All eyes on March 17-18, 2026.
Before we look forward, though, let’s look back at a doozy of a week when it comes to macroeconomic and financial developments.
On Friday, March 6, 2026, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released its February figures and they were, to put it lightly …
Against expectations of 55k new jobs, US employers unexpectedly shed 92k jobs — marking the fifth negative payroll report over the last nine months, 😬.
Compounding matters, the surprise to the downside came with some downward revisions for prior months — including to the robust gains in January that steadied the Fed’s hand — all averaging out to just 6k/month of new jobs over the past three months. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4% from 4.3%. With the US labor market seemingly cooling, one might think that the Federal Reserve would be potentially more inclined to expedite rate cuts.
On, you know, the aforementioned dates 👆.
So, what does the market think? 👇
Ok, maybe not.
And that’s because, in case you didn’t notice, 🙄, the United States and Israel are bombing the hell out the Islamic Republic of Iran, and what’s left of the regime is, in turn, (i) sending ballistic missiles and drones all over the place (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Israel, etc.) and (ii) complicating matters in the Strait of Hormuz, where millions of barrels of oil ride through. Between Hormuz interruptions and Qatari natural gas production coming down, people are fretting about energy prices — so much so, in fact, that the Trump administration is loosening restrictions on Russian oil sales (to India mostly), 🤔. All in, oil hit $90/barrel and gasoline prices are up all over the damn place.
Of course, oil happens to factor meaningfully into inflation gauges. Rising oil prices are reviving inflation worries — bond yields have increased globally as investors price in potential inflation shocks. This, in turn, bludgeoned the equity market: the S&P 500 Index finished the week down 1.24% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.65% (on the flip side, the Nasdaq Composite finished up 0.29%). Gold and BTC also came down, reflecting a market with very few places to hide and growing concern over the return of the dreaded “s” word — “stagflation.”
Sounds bad, right? So why are we getting excited?
Putting aside the fact that we’re dour aholes, all of these factors may set up well for added distress. If the market is cooling — and we’re not downplaying the breadth of such a big surprise to the downside at -92k jobs … nor the reasonable assumption that there’ll be a healthcare-based upward move next month (due to strike activity) — some growth expectations may need to be reassessed and leverage ratios recalculated. AI, war, tariffs, higher oil prices, continued chaos in DC … there are an increasing number of reasons to be sanguine about more RX activity. Notably, 58% of leveraged loans were at or above par on December 31, 2025 and now roughly only 22% remain there.
ETFs that are overweight software names have been getting hammered …
… and don’t even get us started about what’s happening in private credit. It seems barely a day goes by without some other big name shop putting up the gates and trapping investor money.
Hmmm, hard to understand why investors are suffering clamoring, 🤔.
Of course, chapter 11 bankruptcy has been … well … fairly muted lately. February didn’t exactly usher in any really robust cases and, one week in, March ain’t exactly getting the juices flowing either (a Cumulus Media chapter 22 prepack,😴, see below anyway).
That said, February’s numbers are interesting. Epiq AACER released its latest bankruptcy statistics for February and, well, they’re up across the board:
“Small business filings, captured as subchapter V elections within chapter 11, increased 91 percent in February 2026 to 314, up from 164 the previous year, according to data provided by Epiq AACER … Commercial chapter 11 bankruptcy filings increased 67 percent in February 2026, with the 814 filings increasing from the 487 filings in February 2025. February’s commercial chapter 11 total reflected a large number of related filings tied to a few sizeable [sic] commercial chapter 11 proceedings. Total February commercial filings increased 21 percent to 2,666 from the 2,200 commercial filings in February 2025.”
Sure, the bankruptcy lawyer may not be dead but these numbers are a bit misleading. They’re (i) inflated by number of debtors rather than amount of debt and (ii) therefore, not in the segment of the market that keeps a lot of you folks busy. Still, the dramatic rise in subchapter Vs is a market commentary in and of itself.
Let’s dig in to some situations that are keeping certain of you busy, starting with the aforementioned Cumulus Media ….
📻New Chapter 22 Bankruptcy Filing - Cumulus Media Inc.📻
On March 4 and 5, 2026, Cumulus Media Inc. ($CMLSQ)(“CMI”) and forty affiliates (collectively, together with CMI, the “debtors” and together with their non-debtor affiliates, the “company”) filed widely-supported prepackaged chapter 22 bankruptcy cases in the Southern District of Texas (Judge Perez). The filing comes just shy of one year since our last update …
… about the “audio-first” media company, which not quite two years ago transformed its capital structure through a slight-discount-capturing and maturity pushing liability management exercise (“LME”) that converted (i) ~97% of an old ‘26 term loan into a senior ‘29 term loan (the “‘29 term loan”) and (ii) ~94% of unsecured notes due ‘26 into new senior secured notes due ‘29 (together with the ‘29 term loan, the “‘29 debt”), leaving the following petition-date debt stack:
Alas, radio and podcasts like these …
… most of which we’d never heard of … haven’t surged in popularity in the post-LME, post-COVID, WFH era.
In FY’24, the company reported ~$827.1mm in net revenue primarily derived from selling ad spots, a net loss of ~$283.2mm (including a $221.8mm impairment charge), and adjusted EBITDA of ~$82.7mm, all worse YoY from FY’23.
FY’25 looks to have been keeping with the trend. In the first nine months of the year, the company booked net revenue of ~$553.6mm (⬇️ ~9% YoY), a net loss of ~$65.6mm (⬆️ ~25.7% YoY), and adjusted EBITDA of $42.5mm (⬇️ ~26.2% YoY).
And it may get bleaker.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to PETITION to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.