Sinclair’s Private Debt Offering Rates Strong With Moody’s

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SBG / Sinclair Broadcast GroupSinclair Television Group has set a private offering of $350 million in senior unsecured notes with an expected maturity in 2027—a debt offering designed to fund the redemption of the Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary’s 6.375% senior unsecured notes due 2021.


The arrangement elicited a positive reaction from Moody’s Investor Service. {lock}

“The extended maturity of the newly issued senior unsecured note is credit positive, lowering borrowing costs and pushing out the debt maturity profile of the senior unsecured note from 2021 to 2027,” Moody’s writes.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.’s Ba3 Corporate Family Rating remains unchanged. Moody’s says that rating “reflects the company’s established brand, scale and geographic U.S. reach.”

Sinclair Television Group is comprised of 173 television stations, many of which have HD multicasts, in 81 markets—giving it more stations than any other broadcast company.

“These assets will generate close to $2.6 billion in annualized revenue over our rating horizon, and scale consistent with peers in this rating category,” Moody’s writes. “Sinclair’s market focus benefits from high growth political ad revenue, given its presence in 23 state capitals and 10 swing states, in addition to operating a broadcast TV station [ABC affiliate WJLA-7] and cable news network [NewsChannel 8] in Washington, DC.”

Sinclair added the former Allbritton properties to its roster in August 2014.

Moody’s also lauds Sinclair for having its revenue model become “more balanced, with a higher mix of retransmission fees, which are growing at a much faster pace than its core ad revenue.”