Texas-headquartered iHeartMedia, the radio and entertainment firm, has named Kareem Chin as its new senior vice president and head of IR as it plans its IPO.
The firm filed plans with the SEC in April to list on Nasdaq, as it neared bankruptcy exit. Despite having filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, the firm is betting on the growth of podcasts to drive revenue post-IPO. Its recent financial struggles aside, the firm says that ‘with more than a quarter of a billion monthly listeners in the US, iHeartMedia has the largest reach of any radio and television outlet in America.’
Chin, formerly Viacom’s vice president of IR, will be based in New York and report to Rich Bressler, president, COO and CFO of iHeartMedia.
Starting this week, Chin – an MBA holder from the Columbia Graduate School of Business – will manage iHeartMedia’s relationship with the investor community and work to ensure company strategy is aligned with the needs of the firm’s equity holders following iHeartMedia’s planned IPO. He will oversee the company’s investor conferences, investor meetings, quarterly earnings releases and financial filings, according to a statement announcing his appointment.
‘We’re extremely pleased to have someone with Kareem’s extensive financial background and industry knowledge to help reintroduce the equity world to iHeartMedia and tell the story of iHeart’s leadership in audio as we prepare to list on the Nasdaq exchange,’ says Bressler in the statement. ‘Kareem is both well known and well respected in the investment and media communities, which makes him the perfect person to work with both our new shareholders and the equity analysts who will now cover us.’
Chin previously spent 10 years in investment banking at Jefferies and Deutsche Bank Securities before moving into IR at Viacom where he served as vice president of IR for three years, working on communicating the company’s strategy and results with a specific focus on corporate access, investor conferences and non-deal roadshows.
