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Sinclair will restructure its $985 million deal to buy Allbritton...

Sinclair will restructure its $985 million deal to buy Allbritton Communications’ TV stations to comply with guidelines for transactions involving sharing arrangements issued by the FCC last week (CD March 14 p9), the broadcaster said Thursday in a news release…

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(http://bit.ly/1l8brCj ). “If the proposed restructuring is approved, Sinclair will sell certain stations it currently owns to parties other than the parties who were originally contemplated to buy these stations, and following the sale will not provide any services to such stations.” Sinclair is concerned the Media Bureau’s process for review of applications “would result in undue further delays to processing of the Applications and may result in the parties being unable to consummate the proposed transactions,” it said. Sinclair said it would sell WHP-TV, the CBS affiliate in Harrisburg, Pa., WMMP, the MyNetwork affiliate in Charleston, S.C., and WABM, the MyNetwork affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., if the restructuring is approved. Sinclair would also stop providing services to Fox affiliate WTAT Charleston and transfer the rights to provide services to WLYH Harrisburg to the buyer of WHP. “The proposed changes to the transaction will have an immaterial impact on Sinclair as a whole and on the Allbritton transaction in particular,” said CEO David Smith. “These markets were always a very small part of the Allbritton acquisition.” The stations to be sold were expected to contribute only about $21 million of earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation in 2014, and their sale will reduce the $21.5 million of “operating synergies” created in the Allbritton transaction by $2 million, Sinclair said.