Broadcast deal volume reached almost half a billion dollars in Q4 2015 according to SNL Kagan

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Jan 07, 2016, 07:30 ET

MONTEREY, Calif., Jan. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Announced today by SNL Kagan, a division within S&P Capital IQ and SNL, broadcast station mergers & acquisitions (M&A) volume reached $486.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. Radio reached $160.4 million while TV registered deals worth $326.4 million. The SNL Kagan report finds that the total is low compared to the more than $3 billion of the previous quarter, but it is still more than the deal volume of the first half of the year.

Highlights from the SNL Kagan report:

There were no billion-dollar deals in the fourth quarter (Q4) and only one transaction of more than $100 million, but with 37 transactions of $1 million or more, Q4 delivered a similarly solid number of million-dollar deals as the previous quarter (38 deals over $1 million).
The TV market ended the year with an average 8.4x forward seller's multiple (0.1 point higher than at the end of Q3). The radio cash flow (c.f.) multiple remained unchanged at 6.7x.
The top TV deal and the only hundred-million-dollar deal of the quarter was Nexstar Broadcasting Group Inc.'s $130 million/8.4x c.f. acquisition of the CBS outlets in the West Virginia markets of Charleston-Huntington, Bluefield-Beckley-Oak Hill and Wheeling, as well as the NBC affiliate in Clarksburg, W.Va., from West Virginia Media Holdings.
In a twist to the usual spectrum aggregator model, LocusPoint Networks LLC sold three of its stations — WMJF-CD in Baltimore, W33BY in Detroit and WBNF-CD in Buffalo, N.Y. — to HME Equity Fund II LLC for $23.75 million. LocusPoint and its backers Blackstone Group had acquired the stations in 2012-2014 for a total of $4.83 million and may have wanted to earn a return on some of the capital invested to date, and/or concentrate on a smaller number of high-demand markets.
The top news in the radio sector was the second-largest radio deal of the year, Wilks Broadcast Group LLC's $54.0 million/8.1x c.f. sale of its three-station cluster in the Denver market to sports and real estate mogul Stan Kroenke's Kroenke Sports & Entertainment LLC. Wilks, who is exiting the radio business, also found buyers for its Columbus, Ohio, stations. The company sold WLVQ to Saga Communications Inc. for $13.0 million/7.4x while Radio One Inc. purchased WHOK and WZOH for $2.0 million.

About SNL Kagan
SNL Kagan, a division of S&P Capital IQ and SNL, is a comprehensive resource for financial intelligence in the media and communications sector, including the broadcasting, cable, entertainment, motion picture, telecom, wireless, satellite, publishing, new-media industries and media technologies. The SNL Kagan suite of products integrates breaking news, comprehensive data and expert analysis into an electronic database available online and updated around the clock. For more information, visit www.snlkagan.com.

About S&P Capital IQ and SNL
S&P Capital IQ and SNL Financial, a business unit of McGraw Hill Financial (NYSE:MHFI), is a leading provider of financial and industry data, research, news and analytics to investment professionals, government agencies, corporations, and universities worldwide. The newly combined firm integrates news, comprehensive market and sector-specific data and analytics into a variety of tools to help track performance, generate alpha, identify investment ideas, understand competitive and industry dynamics, perform valuation and assess credit risk.
For more information, visit www.spcapitaliq.com or www.snl.com.

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SOURCE S&P Capital IQ and SNL; SNL Kagan