Oak Hill Capital Partners Grows Local TV
Private equity firm’s television station affiliate holding company gets a new shareholder as it doubles its portfolio.
July 15, 2008
Oak Hill Capital Partners’ Local TV LLC just got a big boost. The television affiliate holding company just got a new infusion of properties it will integrate from Rupert Murdoch’s FOX stations castaways list.
Last year, Murdoch said during a conference that he was looking to lighten the load of television stations owned by News Corp., and did just that Tuesday, when he sold eight assets to Oak Hill Capital Partners—and, through that deal, Local TV. Particularly, Murdoch has sought to retain his properties in the largest US broadcast markets.
FOX stations in Denver, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri; Birmingham, Alabama; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Greensboro, North Carolina and Cleveland, Ohio transferred from News Corp. to Oak Hill Capital Partners and Local TV for $1.1 billion, according to a joint statement.
“We are very pleased to be able to add these leading, heritage television stations to Oak Hill's existing portfolio of broadcasting assets,” said J. Taylor Crandall, a Managing Partner of Oak Hill Capital Partners. “We remain confident that our Local TV management team will continue to deliver strong operating performance with these stations.”
Also, a statement issued said, Geolo Capital, the private equity arm of the John A. Pritzker family, joined Local TV as a minority owner. Their stake was not disclosed.
Along with its existing FOX properties the Oak Hill property runs CBS, NBC and ABC stations as well.
Local TV was formed after Oak Hill purchased a number of television assets from The New York Times Company’s portfolio and re-branded them under the new company name in May 2007. Since then, Local TV has appeared in several auctions and once employed now-Tribune operating chief Randy Michaels as its chief executive.
“We are delighted to have finalized the acquisition of these fantastic broadcast properties and look forward to working with our very capable team of employees to further build these premier local brands and leading news franchises,” said Local TV chief executive Bobby Lawrence.
Having just doubled its size overnight, Local TV seems to have taken on one of the bigger M&A opportunities of the year for television stations. Others could come from the Tribune Co., which still needs to shed assets to pay back debt, and from Landmark Communications’ ongoing divestitures, although just one TV station—a Las Vegas, Nevada, CBS property—remains up for grabs.
Deutsche Bank advised Oak Hill on the deal, along with Dow Lohnes and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. Debt financing, consisting of a $565 million senior secured credit facility and a $200 million senior notes offering was underwritten by affiliates of Deutsche Bank, UBS Securities, Bank of America Securities and BNP Paribas Securities.
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