MUMBAI: Sinclair Broadcast Group has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the stock of Bonten Media Group Holdings, and Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the membership interest of Esteem Broadcasting for an aggregate purchase price of $240.0 million.

Sinclair, pro forma for all pending transactions, the company will own, operate and/or provide services to 191 television stations in 89 markets, broadcasting 551 channels.

Bonten owns 14 television stations in eight markets which reach approximately 1% of the U.S. TV households and provides services to four stations pursuant to joint sales agreements with Esteem Broadcasting. Completion of the transaction is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including approval by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) and antitrust clearance, as applicable.

The Company anticipates that the transaction will close and fund with cash on hand in the third quarter of 2017, subject to the satisfaction of the closing conditions.

“We look forward to welcoming the Bonten employees into the Sinclair family and are pleased to be growing our regional presence in several states where we already operate,” commented Sinclair president and CEO of Chris Ripley. “We believe our economies of scale help us bring improvements to small market stations, including investments in news, other quality local programming, and multicast opportunities with our emerging networks of Comet, Charge! And TBD.”

Including the Bonten station acquisitions, all previously announced acquisitions, and pro forma for expected synergies, the Company’s 2015 and 2016 media revenues would have been $2.236 billion and $2.620 billion, respectively. The $240.0 million purchase price represents a 6.7x multiple and is expected to be on average approximately $25 million accretive to our free cash flow on an annualised basis.