Another Tegna investor calls for merger or sale of TV station giant

One of Tegna’s larger investors wants the company, which owns 66 local TV stations in 54 markets, to consider a sale or merger, reports Reuters.

• Hedge fund HG Vora feels that the company could be primed to fetch top dollar as the local TV industry is facing consolidation that could cut costs and boost profits.
• HG Vora holds about 4% of Tegna’s stock and now falls in line behind two other investors calling for changes at the company.
• Tegna stock has risen 14% compared to 65% overall growth in the S&P 500 over the past five years.
• In the past year, the stock has grown 55%, compared to a 26% S&P growth.
• Tegna recently acquired several stations from Nexstar Media Group after the latter was forced to sell off stations in some markets to avoid ownership rule conflicts.
• However, the FCC has shown signs of loosening ownership rules, which could spell good news for broadcasters looking to combine station backend operations to save money.
• Tegna itself was formed back in 20015 when Gannett split its newspaper publishing and broadcast units into two separately traded companies.
• While Tegna is technically the successor of the “old Gannett,” it changed its name to the made up word Tegna after the transaction was complete.
• Meanwhile, the Gannett name was retained for the newspaper publishing company.
• At the time, it was a trend for media companies to split separate units into distinct companies.