Nexstar has extended the contract of Chief Financial Officer Thomas Carter through 2021, past the previous expiration date of August 2018.
Carter joined Nexstar in 2009 after serving as the managing director of Media Telecom Corporate Investment Banking at Banc of America Securities. Under his new deal, Carter can expect equity-based compensation incentives along with his annual performance-based bonus.
“In his seven years at Nexstar, Tom has been instrumental in structuring accretive growth transactions, extracting synergies through precise integration planning, bringing new efficiencies to our operating practices and significantly enhancing the Company’s access to and cost of growth capital. As a result, and upon completion of the Media General transaction, Nexstar will be one of the nation’s leading, diversified local marketing and content companies with annual revenue in excess of $2.3 billion,” said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook in a statement.
“Tom has been invaluable in our capital market interactions while positioning Nexstar for continued growth with a portfolio of premiere stations and digital assets, a strong balance sheet and an attractive weighted average cost of capital which collectively affords us the financial flexibility to simultaneously allocate free cash flow to reduce leverage, evaluate additional accretive strategic growth investments and expand our return of capital to shareholders," Sook added.
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Nexstar’s move to solidify its management team for the next few years comes as the broadcaster is still pursuing an FCC signoff on its $4.6 billion bid to merge with Media General.
The FCC, now on day 328 of its review of the proposed merger, has drawn the ire of the NAB for its snail-paced approval process. The FCC claims the wait is due to the companies missing a filing deadline for transfer of spectrum licenses, which means approval will have to wait until after the broadcast incentive auction.
“Refusing to permit the consummation of an approved transaction for an additional indefinite period—on top of the nearly eight months their applications have been pending—unfairly penalizes broadcasters who seek to conduct routine business during the course of the extended incentive auction process,” NAB said in a letter sent to the agency in October last year.