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Hedge Fund Standard General Returns to Media Dealmaking Roots

Hedge Fund Standard General Returns to Media Dealmaking Roots

(Bloomberg) -- Standard General LP, the hedge fund that once sold a collection of newspapers to Warren Buffett, is back in the media business with a stake in TV broadcaster Tegna Inc. and is on the hunt for a deal.

The fund’s last big television investment was in Media General, acquired by Nexstar Media Group Inc. for $4.6 billion in 2017. Now Standard General wants to bring that experience to bear by taking an activist role at Tegna, Chief Investment Officer Soo Kim said in an interview. Last week, Standard General disclosed a 9.8% stake in Tegna, which owns 64 local TV stations and four radio stations in the U.S., in 51 markets.

Tegna has already drawn the interest of private equity behemoth Apollo Management, which is in the process of wrapping up another deal to acquire 13 stations from Cox Enterprises Inc. Apollo told Tegna it was willing to do both TV deals simultaneously and could pay a premium based on the broadcaster’s 52-week high, according to people familiar with the matter.

Tegna rebuffed Apollo’s approach, which the company revealed consisted of a letter of interest in February that did not specify a price and a different proposal for a combination with Cox in June. Tegna traded above $14 in February 2018 and then fell as low as $10.09 before climbing again in mid-2019, reaching as high as $16.44.

“Standard General has a successful track record of actively working with publicly-listed television broadcasting companies,” said Kim, managing partner and chief investment officer at Standard General. “In our role as significant shareholders and directors of companies in the sector, which has included significant expertise in M&A, we have created considerable value for investors.”

Hedge Fund Standard General Returns to Media Dealmaking Roots

If Tegna doesn’t work with Standard General to explore deals, it could face a tense situation with its new top investor. Standard General prefers to work closely with management teams, though it also has a history of seeking board representation when it’s a major shareholder.

Tegna’s management has met with Standard General in recent weeks and will do so again soon, people familiar with the matter said. The broadcaster didn’t receive an exact offer price from Apollo in writing, one of the people said.

Serial Dealmaker

Kim, who co-founded Standard General in 2007 after working at Bankers Trust, Och-Ziff Capital Managment, and starting Cyrus Capital Partners, has been on the board of a number of TV station firms. Starting with an investment in Young Broadcasting, a $300 million company in bankruptcy, the hedge fund helped steer a string of mergers with Media General, LIN Media, an aborted one with Meredith Corp and finally with Nexstar.

Over the past five years, Standard General has generated an annualized net return of 5%, compared with 3% for the HFR Event-Driven Special Situation Index, according to a person familiar with the matter. There have been learning experiences along the way -- the firm was involved in the ill-fated attempt to help American Apparel Inc. founder Dov Charney boost his stake in the company, which later filed for bankruptcy. And Standard General unsuccessfully tried to revive the RadioShack chain by acquiring its brand and hundreds of stores out of bankruptcy.

Standard General isn’t the typical activist investor. Rather, the hedge fund takes large ownership stakes -- it had 50% control of Young Broadcasting at one point -- and uses them to take board seats and direct management. Besides its position in Tegna, Standard General currently holds 20% of National CineMedia Inc, according to Bloomberg data. National CineMedia agreed to give Standard General two board seats.

“Tegna’s board and management team value input from our shareholders and welcome a dialogue with all shareholders,” Tegna said in a statement. “Our board of directors regularly evaluates opportunities to drive value and is committed to acting in the best long-term interests of all of our shareholders.”

Complicated Path

The roadmap for successful TV broadcasting mergers may have become more challenging, however, after a federal appeals court rejected changes that the Federal Communications Commission made to media ownership rules. The decision could narrow the potential universe of acquirers. Apollo also is awaiting regulatory approval for its leveraged buyout of Cox TV stations.

The media ownership restrictions could give Tegna a path to acquire assets rather than sell them, since competitors including Cox and Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. are tied up in other deals.

Standard General has a non-controlling stake in a smaller broadcasting business, Standard Media Group, which owns a couple of TV stations in Rhode Island and Nebraska. The company tried to acquire nine stations from Sinclair in 2018, but the deal fell through after Sinclair’s acquisition of Tribune Media Co. fell apart.

Representatives for Apollo declined to comment.

“As the single largest active shareholder of Tegna, we are looking forward to a constructive dialogue with the management team, and to leveraging our experience to secure the best possible outcome for the company,” Kim said.

--With assistance from Katia Porzecanski and Heather Perlberg.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lisa Lee in New York at llee299@bloomberg.net;Nabila Ahmed in New York at nahmed54@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Crombie at jcrombie8@bloomberg.net

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.