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SCA sells northern NSW television assets to WIN for $55m

Southern Cross Austereo has agreed to sell its northern New South Wales TV operation to Bruce Gordon’s WIN Corporation for $55m.

The move comes less than a week after a discussion broke down which would have also seen WIN hand over its i98FM Wollongong radio station to SCA as part of a deal.

The new arrangement sees WIN hand over $45m for the TV assets up front and a further $10m one year later. The area covered includes stretches from Newcastle to the Gold Coast and inland towards Tamworth and beyond.

WIN will buy SCA’s Northern NSW TV assets

For viewers there will be little obvious impact on the screen, with the NNSW stations already syndicating Ten’s content. WIN switched to syndicating Ten content last year, while in other parts of the country SCA stations carry a mixture of Nine, Ten and Seven programming, depending on the market.

The deal will help SCA’s balance sheet which had net debt of $340m at the time of its last annual report.  Last year to help ease its cash flow issues, SCA pre-sold 20 years worth of on air inventory to Australian Traffic Network for $100m upfront.

Among SCA’s key assets are the Hit and Triple M national radio networks plus its regional TV assets which are focused in the eastern states. The company has a current market capitalisation of just over $1bn. Shortly after the deal was announced, the SXL share price was up 1.5%.

SCA’s will hand over its NNSW properties (shown in orange) to WIN

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