Los Angeles Music Scene: Live Nation Adding Debt - for expansion or survival?

Just came across this news article. Back in mid-December, Live Nation issued $500 million in debt. Per LA Business Journal (Dec 18), it was a private offering at an annual interest rate of 3.75%.

The PR release (Dec 17) states:

The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to repay $75 million aggregate principal amount of the company's senior secured term loan B facility, for general corporate purposes, including acquisitions and organic investment opportunities, and to pay fees and expenses related to the offering. Completion of the offering of the Notes is subject to, among other things, pricing and market conditions.

Most of the debt is being used for general corporate purposes, which could include the ability to expand. I don't necessarily think that the issuance of $500 million in debt is a warning sign about their financial stability as the annual interest rate is at 3.75% while a previous debt issuance of senior secured notes has an interest rate of 6.5% (per the PR release). It is interesting that they are issuing more debt instead of dipping into their available debt capacity of $950 million.

In a November blog post, I wrote the following that discusses their debt capacity: 

They look at what they call "free cash." Free cash makes various adjustments to their cash. For example, they adjust for "ticket-related client funds." I interpret that as the portion of ticket sales that don't belong to Live Nation -- probably advance ticket sales at this point. Anyways, after making those adjustments, their "free cash at the end of the third quarter is $951 million." They also have "over $950 million of available debt capacity." So they really have $1.9 billion in available cash.

I suppose the low interest rate was just too enticing. Of course, it should be noted that this was a private offering so is this a wealthy insider such as John Malone?

Based on the PR release, is this debt issuance for expansion? Considering that the interest rate is much lower than a previous issuance, you have to contemplate the strong possibility that they're heading in that direction and someone is buying into that vision. If that is their direction, one does have to wonder if they're playing a dangerous debt game or seeing some great post-COVID-19 opportunities (similar to Marc Geiger). Their debt will be around $5.3 billion as of December 31st. Just back in Dec 2017, it was under $2 billion.  

(I should note that my assumption a few months back was that Live Nation would end up needing to sell off venues to generate additional cash. That doesn't square with the above so this theory might need to get tossed.)

Their Q4 earnings release should be in early February and will likely provide some interesting insight.