The Board of Directors for the nation’s largest licensee of broadcast television stations — and WGN-AM in Chicago — has asked its shareholders to approve an amendment to its corporate charter that would directly impact the board itself.
The request comes concurrent to word that the Nexstar Media Group board has OK’d a new share repurchase program and has declared a rather generous quarterly cash dividend.
First, the Nexstar board recommends that shareholders approve an amendment to its corporate charter to declassify itself.
The proposed charter amendment is subject to shareholder approval at the company’s next annual shareholders meeting, which is not until 2023.
Meanwhile, the Nexstar Board said yes to a new share repurchase program that authorizes the company to repurchase up to $1.5 billion of its common stock.
The new share repurchase authorization is in addition to Nexstar’s existing share repurchase program announced in January 2021, of which $415.1 million remained as of May 9, 2022.
Yet, the biggest news from Irving, Tex.-based Nexstar is that its board has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.90 per share of its common stock.
The dividend is payable on Thursday, August 25, to shareholders of record on Thursday, August 11.
“Growing shareholder returns and strengthening Nexstar’s corporate governance practices are essential to executing on our commitment to enhancing shareholder value, and the $1.5 billion increase in our share repurchase program and proposed plan to declassify the Board are the latest shareholder friendly actions the Board has taken to deliver on that promise,” said company founder and Chairman/CEO Perry Sook. “We remain confident in the company’s financial position and growth opportunities and look forward to reporting our second quarter results on August 4.”
With its shares trading at $188.10, down 2.4% from Thursday’s close, as of 11:40am Eastern on Friday, NXST has been nearly resistant to the pulverizing many broadcast media stocks have taken on Wall Street since the arrival of COVID-19 in North America in March 2020. In fact, the five-year trend for Nexstar shares is nothing short of stellar, with current price at or near record highs.
