Nexstar To Repurchase $100 Million Of Shares

Nexstar Media Group said today that its board of directors has approved an expansion of the company’s share repurchase authorization to buy back up to an additional $100 million of its Class A common stock.

During the second quarter of 2017, Nexstar repurchased approximately 839,000 shares of its Class A common stock at an average purchase price of approximately $58.10 per share for a total cost of $48.7 million, which, it said, depleted the balance of its prior $100 million share repurchase authorization.

Perry A. Sook, Nexstar chairman, president and CEO, said: “The expanded repurchase authorization reflects our confidence in the company’s growing free cash flow from operations and our focus on deploying capital in a manner that best serves our shareholders.

“With the operating momentum across our business Nexstar remains on track to meet our target for average annual free cash flow in the 2017-2018 cycle of approximately $565 million (before the impact of $47.7 million of one-time transaction expenses). As such, we have the financial flexibility to take a range of actions to enhance shareholder value including our return of capital initiatives through the quarterly cash dividend and share repurchases, leverage reduction and pursuing opportunistic, accretive tuck-in acquisitions.”

The company said it anticipates funding any share repurchases from its cash flow from operations. Reflecting the repurchases in the second quarter of 2017, Nexstar has approximately 46.4 million shares of Class A common stock outstanding (the only class of shares outstanding).