Emmis CFO Pat Walsh Honored

Pat Walsh

EMMIS COMMUNICATIONS CFO PATRICK WALSH has been named CFO Of The Year by the INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS JOURNAL. WALSH, who joined  EMMIS in 2006 armed with ideas for operational improvements, had to help the company sail though the economic turbulence of the 2008 recession.

"To some extent, we had to crumble up the game plan and move into a crisis mentality," he told the paper. "We had to operate with the mentality that we had a great company with great culture but if we didn’t survive this punch in the jaw, nothing really mattered.”

Not only did EMMIS have to make staff cuts, it had to sell off some of its properties -- during a downturn. “I’m really proud of what our finance staff did,” he said. “Our team was incredibly creative and resourceful. Some of what we structured -- the way we sold the CHICAGO stations -- was unprecedented. The deal we created with ESPN in NEW YORK. The station we leased and sold to a Mexican entity in L.A. All cutting-edge.”

And:  “We were left with most of the most valuable assets that we had at the start of the process.”

The end-result EMMIS now has reduced its debt-to-earnings ratio from 14-to-1 to under 4-to-1, and its stock rose of a de-listing noticed 76 cents/share to over $3.

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