A pair of deals will involve two buyers and two sellers for stations on opposite sides of the nation, but the acquisitive driver is Perry Sook’s Nexstar Broadcasting. The stations are in California and Vermont.
In all, $50.1M is going to be spent to build up the Nexstar portfolio.
In California, it is picking up some of the few remaining stations on the Newport Television shelves. Nexstar will pick up CBS KGPE-TV in Fresno, and in Bakersfield, it’s acquiring NBC/CW KGET and Telemundo KKEY-LP. The price of that deal will be $35.4M. Nexstar says the deal will be instantly accretive.
In Vermont, with frequent partner Mission Broadcasting, it’s picking up a pair of Smith Media stations in the Burlington DMA: Fox WFFF-TV and ABC WVNY. Those stations are coming for $17.1M, and the deal is also expected to be instantly accretive. Mission will be getting the ABC affiliate and will enter into an LMA with Nexstar.
Sook said, “These transactions are consistent with our criteria for acquisitions that further strategically diversify our operations, create or present opportunities for virtual duopoly markets and which are financially accretive. In aggregate, the purchase price for the five new stations is less than 5.0 times the average 2011/2012 pro-forma cash flow and we expect the combined acquisitions to increase our free cash flow by approximately 8% to 10% annually in each of the next two years. Under Nexstar and Mission’s ownership the stations will realize additional retransmission revenues as well as synergistic operating improvements, and on a pro-forma basis the acquisitions are both immediately accretive to results and leverage neutral on a debt-to-cash-flow basis.”
