After buying 14.8 per cent of Southern Cross Austereo in June, ARN Media has joined with PE firm Anchorage to bid for the whole of the Australian radio broadcaster.

ARN Media – which changed its name from Here, There & Everywhere in May – was previously APN News & Media, the regional newspaper publisher which unloaded its mastheads and printing facilities to NewsCorp Australia in 2016 for $36.6 million.

Its origins are as Provincial Newspapers (Queensland), a business in which News had been required to shed its interest when it bought the Herald & Weekly Times in 1987.

ARN Media is currently home to the KIIS network, iHeartRadio and CADA, while SCA operates Triple M, the Hit and LiSTNR networks.

With Anchorage Capital Partners it has made a non-binding indicative offer to acquire 100 per cent of the fully diluted share capital of Southern Cross Austereo.

A statement says the intention would be for radio and television assets of ARN and SCA to be separated into independent ownership by each of ARN and Anchorage, resulting in two separate, national media organisations which would “compete independently of each other on metro and regional radio, and more broadly”.

SCA shareholders are being offered 0.753 ARN shares and 29.6 cents cash per SCA share.

ARN chief executive and managing director Ciaran Davis (pictured) says there is “a significant value creation opportunity” in bringing together certain of the radio and digital audio assets. “ARN is ideally positioned to support and operate an expanded regional radio network and as a combined group of scale in digital audio, positioned to compete efficiently and effectively with international competitors.”

SCA has described the offer as “unsolicited, complex and highly conditional”.

In June, ARN had been prohibited under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 from owning a 15 or more per cent stake of SCA.