Astral Media acquires substantially all of Standard Radio's assets

On October 29, 2007, Astral Media Inc. completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Standard Radio Inc. consisting of 53 radio stations in 30 markets across Canada, as well as two television stations located in northern British Columbia. Also included in the transaction are the assets of Integrated Media Sales, a national advertising sales organization, and of Sound Source Networks, a radio content service provider. The purchase price for these assets was approximately $1.08 billion, of which an amount of approximately $879.9 million was paid in cash and the balance via the issuance of 4,750,987 Class A non-voting shares of the Company. The cash portion of the consideration was financed with cash balances on hand and through committed bank credit facilities. Astral's lending syndicate, which made available credit facilities in an aggregate amount of $1 billion, was represented by Marc Novello, Angela Onesi , Martin Racicot and Alexandre Gagnon of Fasken Martineau.