Buyer Sook Would Sell If The Price Was Right

Since its founding nearly two decades ago, Nexstar Broadcasters has been a buyer, a consolidator of TV stations. Over the years, the publicly traded company has grown to 72 stations reaching 12.1% of TV homes.

But at the SNL TV and Radio Finance Summit in New York yesterday, CEO Perry Sook said there may come a time when even a buyer like Nexstar becomes a seller.

“We are not for sale; we are not advertising,” Sook told fellow broadcasters and media finance experts during a panel session. But if someone were to offer a big premium on the company’s share price, he said, “that would be a very interesting conversation to have in the board room.”

If the best way to maximize value “is to hand the keys to somebody else,” he said, then that is “what the management team should advocate the shareholders do.”

Sook put the company on the market in 2007, but had to withdraw it when financing tightened in the prelude to the Great Recession.

Regardless of where Nexstar comes out, Sook said that the industry is not yet at the mid-point of the $8 billion round of consolidation that he predicted a few years ago. So far, there have been $2.5 billion worth of deals with Sinclair (40%) and Nexstar (25%) leading the way. He said 2013 will bring another $3 billion, with Allbritton Communications and Local TV LLC the next to go.