Sinclair Broadcast Group this week said it will reorganize its various businesses under a new holding company called Sinclair, Inc.
The company, which has earned the affectionate nickname “New Sinclair,” will serve as the parent for Sinclair’s broadcast properties, sports subsidiaries, streaming services and various media and non-media related investments, executives affirmed.
“We believe the new structure will provide greater flexibility for creating value within the company. The new structure simplifies the corporate structure and improves the transparency of financial disclosures on the value drivers of the company,” Christopher Ripley, the president and CEO of Sinclair, said in a statement. “We believe these other assets, some of which are currently buried in the broadcast division, can receive greater visibility outside the ‘broadcast’ umbrella, while Sinclair Broadcast will become a broadcast-focused subsidiary for which stockholders can better value its true performance. In short, we believe a holding company structure can unlock unrecognized value and provide structural flexibility for the growth and monetization of our current and potential future media and non-media businesses.”
Sinclair, Inc. will become the new publicly-traded company that encapsulates the various media and non-media businesses. Nothing will change in terms of Sinclair’s board of directors, executive leadership or the business of the public company.
To help break things down, Sinclair provided a flow chart that showed the structure of the company before its reorganization and afterward.
Prior to the reorganization, Sinclair Broadcast Group included three primary subsidiaries: Sinclair Television Group (which included Compulse and the Tennis Channel), Diamond Sports (Bally Sports regional sports networks) and various private equity and real estate assets.
After the reorganization is complete, Sinclair will consist of two primary subsidiaries: Sinclair Broadcast Group and Sinclair Ventures. The broadcast company will include its local television stations and Diamond Sports. The Sinclair Ventures company will oversee Compulse, the Tennis Channel and Sinclair’s push to develop and launch the ATSC 3.0 standard, better known as “NextGen TV,” as well as various real estate and non-media assets.
The plan comes less than a month after Sinclair’s Diamond Sports division filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The reorganization is not expected to materially affect those bankruptcy proceedings.
