...CHICAGO (S&P Global Ratings) July 23, 2018--S&P Global Ratings said today that its ratings and outlook on Beasley Broadcast Group Inc. (B+/Stable/--) are not affected by its announcement that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a Philadelphia-based radio station from Entercom Communications Corp. (B+/Stable/--) for $38 million. The acquisition will improve the scale of Beasley's Philadelphia cluster, which we view as beneficial to the company's ability to generate broadcast radio advertising in that market. While we believe the company will finance the transaction primarily with debt, which could temporarily increase leverage toward our downgrade threshold of the high-4x area, we expect positive cash flow generation will continue to support annual dividends, potential further tuck-in acquisitions, and provide some debt reduction capacity over the next 12 months. However, we believe leverage will remain in the mid-4x range in 2018 as secular pressures on radio advertising...
