Standard General

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Standard General L.P.
TypeHedge fund
Founded2007; 15 years ago (2007)
Headquarters
New York City, New York
,
United States
Websitestandardgenerallp.com

Standard General L.P. is an American hedge fund headquartered in New York City. It was founded in 2007 by Soohyung "Soo" Kim and Nicholas Singer with seed capital from Reservoir Capital Group. Since 2013, Soo Kim has been the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer.[1] In 2016 Standard General L.P. was the recipient of the New York City Comptroller's Office Diverse Practitioner Award.[2]

Standard General was active in managing the bankruptcies of Aliante Casino and Hotel, American Apparel,[3] Greektown, RadioShack[4] and Young Broadcasting, which became Media General.

As reported in the 2019 10K, Standard General L.P. is the largest shareholder of Bally's Corporation.

Investment strategies[]

Standard General pursues a single strategy of opportunistic investing primarily in levered U.S. middle-market companies. The firm has the ability to invest across the capital structure but is better known for specializing in distressed debt. Since 2007, it has invested in both publicly traded and private entities and is known for making several control investments.

Bally's[]

Standard General L.P. is the largest shareholder of Bally's Corporation, formerly known as Twin River Worldwide Holdings, Inc. Soo Kim, Standard General's managing partner had been an independent director of the company since 2016 and was elected chairman of the board of directors in late 2019.[5] In July 2020, a headline in the New York Post reported Mr. Kim "gambles on the coronavirus to build casino empire".[6] As the coronavirus pandemic struck in March, Bally's purchased three casinos paying a combined 3.6 times earnings for the three venues.[7] Soo Kim bought Bally's casino brand for $20 million from Caesars Entertainment and announced it would use the name to rebrand substantially all of its holdings.[8] The casino company controlled by Soo Kim's Standard General hedge fund and Sinclair Broadcasting Group teamed up to bet big on sports gambling. As part of the deal, Sinclair will rename 21 sports networks using the Bally's brand.[9] Bally's acquired sports betting platform supplier for $125 million as the company goes all in on sports betting and online gambling.[10] In 2021, Soo Kim was named American Executive of the Year at the Global Gaming Awards in Las Vegas.[11]

Standard Media[]

In April 2018, the divestiture of stations by Sinclair Broadcasting during the Tribune Media buyout opened an opportunity for Standard Media, subsidiary of Standard General, to purchase several of the stations. In the case of the stations in the Wilkes Barre, PA market, Sinclair is not the licensee of these stations and will only be selling the assets of such stations that Sinclair owns, together with its right to purchase the licenses of the stations.[12] The deal fell through when the Sinclair-Tribune merger was terminated on August 9, 2018.

The stations that were to be purchased by Standard Media included:[13]

Standard Media TV Stations
Call Sign Current Owner Affiliate Media Market
WXMI E. W. Scripps Company Fox Grand Rapids, MI
WPMT Tegna Fox Harrisburg, PA
WXLV Sinclair ABC Greensboro, NC
WRLH Sinclair Fox Richmond, VA
WOLF Sinclair Fox Wilkes Barre, PA
WQMY Sinclair MNT Wilkes Barre, PA
WSWB Sinclair CW Wilkes Barre, PA
KDSM Sinclair Fox Des Moines, IA
KOKH Sinclair Fox Oklahoma City, OK

History[]

Media General[]

Standard General became the majority owner of Young Broadcasting after its emergence from chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010.[14] Young Broadcasting later merged with Media General in November 2013.[15] Following that merger, the combined Media General went on to merge with LIN Media, a transaction that would create the nation's eight largest television station group.[16] On January 27, 2016, Media General was sold to Nexstar Broadcasting.[17] Standard General profited $300 million USD from the transaction. In recognition of this series of shareholder value-creating transactions, in May 2016, Gabelli Funds inducted Media General board member Soohyung Kim into the GAMCO Management Hall of Fame.[18]

Aliante Casino and Hotel[]

Aliante Casino and Hotel was developed by Station Casinos and the family-owned Greenspun Corp. In connection with Station's bankruptcy proceedings, lenders took control of Aliante in 2011. From 2011 to 2016, Standard General was the largest stakeholder of ALST Casino Holdco, the owner of the Aliante Casino and Hotel in North Las Vegas. Soohyung Kim served as the CEO of ALST Casino Holdco.[19] In April 2016, Boyd Gaming agreed to purchase the ALST Casino Holdco LLC for total net cash consideration of $380 million.[20]

American Apparel[]

See American Apparel

RadioShack[]

In 2015, The New York Times described the firm as "the little-known hedge fund that is also leading the turnaround at RadioShack."[21] In 2015, during RadioShack's Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Standard General formed General Wireless (although unrelated, General Wireless was the original name for Metro by T-Mobile), to act as the owner and operator of the RadioShack brand and its assets. The new company partnered with Sprint to create co-branded stores, with Sprint's name eventually becoming the primary brand on the exterior and selling both Sprint and RadioShack-branded products and services within.[22] General Wireless filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 8, 2017,[23] taking the RadioShack name through its second bankruptcy in two years. On June 12, 2017, General Wireless announced its intent to auction off the RadioShack name.[24] In late July 2018, RadioShack partnered up with HobbyTown USA to open up around 100 RadioShack "Express" stores.[25] In 2020, the assets were brought by Miami-based Retail Ecommerce Ventures.[26]

References[]

  1. ^ "Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Soohyung Kim". www.institutionalinvestor.com. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  2. ^ "Comptroller Stringer Announces First Ever Recipients Of 'Diverse Practitioner' Awards". September 13, 2016.
  3. ^ William Alden (October 23, 2014). "Drawn to Lost Causes, Hedge Fund Seeks to Turn Them Around". The New York Times. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
  4. ^ Elizabeth A. Harris (August 19, 2014). "RadioShack in Need of Rewiring". The New York Times. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
  5. ^ "Soo Kim Appointed Chair of Twin River Board of Directors".
  6. ^ "Hedge-funder gambles on coronavirus to build casino empire". 27 July 2020.
  7. ^ "Hedge-funder gambles on coronavirus to build casino empire". 27 July 2020.
  8. ^ "Hedge-fund investor Soo Kim buys Bally's casino brand for $20M". 13 October 2020.
  9. ^ "Sinclair Broadcast Group to rename sports channels after Bally's casinos". 18 November 2020.
  10. ^ "Bally's Goes All-In on Sports Betting with Bet.Works and Sinclair Deals". 19 November 2020.
  11. ^ "Revealed: The winners of the Global Gaming Awards Las Vegas 2021".
  12. ^ "SINCLAIR ENTERS INTO AGREEMENTS TO SELL TV STATIONS RELATED TO CLOSING TRIBUNE MEDIA ACQUISITION" (PDF). SBGI: 1. 25 Apr 2018.
  13. ^ "Sinclair Enters Into Agreements To Sell TV Stations Related To Closing Tribune Media Acquisition |". sbgi.net. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
  14. ^ Messmer, Jack (Aug 20, 2012). "Hedge Fund Taking Control Of Young Bcstg". NewsCheckMedia. Retrieved Feb 9, 2016.
  15. ^ "Media General Completes Merger with Young Broadcasting". prnewswire.com (Press release). Nov 12, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
  16. ^ Colman, Price (Sep 24, 2014). "The Most Important, Least Known Man In TV | TVNewsCheck.com". www.tvnewscheck.com. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
  17. ^ Kosman, Josh (Jan 7, 2016). "Standard General sees big gain from Media General tussle". Retrieved Feb 9, 2016.
  18. ^ "Gabelli Funds Names Mark Donegan, James Dolan, Soo Kim, and Tom Gallagher to 2016 Management Hall of Fame | Business Wire". www.businesswire.com. May 23, 2016. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
  19. ^ "ALST Casino Holdco 2015 Form 10-K". EDGAR. SEC.
  20. ^ Beckerman, Josh (2016-04-22). "Boyd Gaming to Boost 'Locals' Business With Aliante Deal". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  21. ^ Hiroko Tabuchi (October 5, 2015). "American Apparel Files for Bankruptcy". The New York Times. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
  22. ^ Torpey, JC (2015-02-06). "RadioShack Bankruptcy Filing Means Sprint, Boost, Virgin Mobile, And T-Mobile To The Rescue?". The Inquisitr News. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  23. ^ J.B. Reed (Mar 8, 2017). "RadioShack files for bankruptcy". www.fortworthbusiness.com. Fort Worth Business Press. Retrieved Mar 8, 2017.
  24. ^ "RadioShack brand to be auctioned in July". newsismybusiness.com. June 12, 2017. Retrieved June 12, 2017 – via News is my Business.
  25. ^ Brown, Dalvin (July 2, 2018). "RadioShack plans to open 100 express locations". USA Today.
  26. ^ "Investment Firm Wants to Revive RadioShack as a Major E-Commerce Site". PCMAG. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
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