Research Update: Nexstar Media Group Inc. 'BB-' Rating Affirmed, Outlook Stable; Debt Ratings Lowered

U.S. TV broadcaster Nexstar Media Group Inc. plans to issue a $700 million incremental term loan A, $3 billion incremental term loan B, and $1.1 billion of notes to partially fund its proposed acquisition of Tribune Media Co. for $6.4 billion (including the assumption of Tribune's debt). Asset sale proceeds and cash on hand will fund the remainder of the purchase price. We affirmed our 'BB-' issuer credit rating on Nexstar based on our expectation that pro forma leverage will increase to around 5.3x in 2019, still below our 5.5x downgrade threshold. We assigned a 'BB' issue-level and '2' recovery rating to Nexstar's proposed term loans A and B. We also lowered the issue-level rating on Nexstar's existing senior secured

...- U.S. TV broadcaster Nexstar Media Group Inc. plans to issue a $700 million incremental term loan A, $3 billion incremental term loan B, and $1.1 billion of notes to partially fund its proposed acquisition of Tribune Media Co. for $6.4 billion (including the assumption of Tribune's debt). Asset sale proceeds and cash on hand will fund the remainder of the purchase price. - We affirmed our '##-' issuer credit rating on Nexstar based on our expectation that pro forma leverage will increase to around 5.3x in 2019, still below our 5.5x downgrade threshold. - We assigned a '##' issue-level and '2' recovery rating to Nexstar's proposed term loans A and B. We also lowered the issue-level rating on Nexstar's existing senior secured debt to '##' from '##+' and revised the recovery rating to '2' from '1' given the higher amount of secured debt. - We also assigned a 'B' issue-level and '6' recovery rating to the proposed senior unsecured notes. We lowered the issue-level rating on Nexstar's existing...

Research Update