Steve Earle at the Ryman, 8/28/2024
Over the past year, Ryman Hospitality Properties has fielded multiple calls about acquiring a percentage of the company’s entertainment business Opry Entertainment Group. However, Ryman Hospitality executive chairman Colin Reed says that it’s important to him to set the record straight about a recent Bloomberg report that the group would sell the Grand Ole Opry House.
“For 25 years, since I’ve been with this company, we’ve loved and cared for, nurtured the Opry and the entertainment business,” says Reed. “I built personal relationships with the vast majority of the artist community, and they trust our company. They trust us.”
RHP currently has no plans to sell the Opry, the Ryman or other properties. Reed says that during the past year the company has been contacted by about 10 organizations that are interested in working with the company to either buy all or part of OEG, or invest a minority stake in the business.
“So, back in late February,” Reed explains, “I said to our board, ‘Look, we’re getting inundated with all these calls. I think what we should do is sit down with these people and have a serious conversation about how they can help us and whether we should take in another partner.’ And that’s what we’ve been doing.”
Reed notes that he’s been saying for 10 years now that at some point, Ryman Hospitality Properties should consider separating its real estate business from its entertainment business.
“We should put it as a separate stand-alone public company,” he says, “because the investor in a real estate investment trust is very different to an investor into an entertainment business.”
As previously reported, RHP has engaged Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC “to assist in evaluating potential opportunities” regarding the sale of OEG. RHP has about 70 percent controlling ownership interest in Opry Entertainment Group, which owns brands including the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, WSM 650 AM, Blake Shelton’s Ole Red and Luke Combs’ Category 10, among others. The entertainment company also manages Nashville’s Ascend Federal Credit Union Amphitheater and CCNB Amphitheatre in Simpsonville, S.C. OEG also owns a majority interest in Southern Entertainment, a festival and events business.
RHP operates OEG as its entertainment segment in a taxable real estate investment trust subsidiary, and its results are consolidated in the company’s financial results. The REIT also owns the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, among other properties. The company offers a market capitalization of about $8.19 billion.
“The problem is we’ve been really successful, and people love the entertainment business,” says Reed. “They love what goes on in Nashville. The reason we’re in business with Blake Shelton and the reason we’re in business with Luke Combs is because they trust us. And the reason we did the Nashville TV show … was because we wanted to position the [Grand Ole Opry House] not as just a 4,000-seater place in Nashville, but as a brand that people all over the world get to know. The reason we took the Opry last year to London was for that very same thing.”
Ryman Hospitality shares (NYSE: RHP) concluded Thursday’s regular trading session priced at $126.64 and were set to open Friday (following after-hours trading) at $127.04, up about 0.32 percent. Volume was low, as about 286,000 shares changed hands compared to a daily average of about 646,000 shares, according to Yahoo Finance.
RHP stock began the year priced at $94.65, having gained about 33.84 percent of value since.
This article was first published by our sister publication Nashville Post.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nashvillescene.com ’
