Good day. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Gray Investor Call on its Meredith transaction. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session you need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. In addition if you require any further assistance press star two. Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to one of your speakers today, Mr. Hilton Howell. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you, Lily, very much. Well, good morning, everyone. We have a record number of attendees this morning joining us by phone, and I'm so very happy that you are here, because we are terribly excited about this announcement. As you know, I'm Hilton Howell, the Chairman and CEO of Gray Television, and we are delighted to talk to you about the deal that we have reached with Meredith Corporation, and then use this moment to publicly thank and recognize all of the employees within Meredith, in the Local Media Group, and the TV station portfolio, who will be joining the Gray family before the end of 2021. On the line with me are our President and Co-Chief Executive Officer, Pat LaPlatney, and our Chief Legal and Development Officer, Kevin Latek, our Chief Financial Officer, Jim Ryan, and our Chief Operating Officer, Bob Smith.
We will begin this morning with our typical disclaimer that Kevin provides, but at the end, he will be adding a few extra provisions to clarify the question-and-answer period thereafter. With that, Kevin, please begin.
Hey. Thank you, Hilton. Good morning, everyone. Like Hilton, we're all very excited about the acquisition of Meredith. Certain matters discussed on this call may contain forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, future operating results and expectations regarding our announced transactions. Those statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results in the future could differ from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors that have been set forth in our company's most recent reports filed with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K. The company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Gray uses its website as the key source of company information. The website address is www.gray.tv. We've also furnished under an 8-K, and posted on our website, a short investor presentation about the transaction with Meredith Corporation.
This morning, we issued our earnings release for the first quarter of 2021. We are not able to discuss our first quarter 2021 financial results or other information contained in the earnings release on this call today. We therefore will still hold our quarterly earnings call at its previously scheduled time of 11:00 a.m. Eastern this Thursday. I also want to emphasize that we are on this call to discuss this transaction. Specific questions about Meredith, its split, its future, its financials are best directed to Meredith. We're not going to be addressing questions about Meredith itself as a company. With that, I return the call to Hilton.
Thank you, Kevin. As I have said, as all of us have said, we are very excited today to announce our acquisition of Meredith Corporation's Local Media Group and its 17 superlative television stations. We will be paying $14.51 per share in cash or $2.7 billion in total enterprise value. We anticipate closing this transaction in the fourth quarter of this year. As you no doubt saw from our release and Meredith's press release, Meredith will separate its two operating divisions into two distinct companies before closing. Immediately prior to our closing, Meredith will spin off to its existing shareholders its operating division known as the National Media Group, which owns some of the nation's largest portfolios of prestigious magazines and related assets. At the closing, when Gray acquires Meredith, it will be comprised only of the Local Media Group and the 17 television stations.
This transaction will bring us a television station in our home market of Atlanta, Georgia, where we will own CBS 46 and Peachtree TV. Let me say to those of you who may be part of those two stations, I've been watching you for months. I look forward to waking up early in the morning and watching you even more as we go forward. In fact, including Atlanta, the Meredith acquisition will bring Gray into nine top 40 television markets. We will also enter Phoenix, Portland, St. Louis, Nashville, Hartford, Kansas City, Greenville, South Carolina, and Las Vegas, Nevada. In most of these cases, Gray already owns top stations in markets adjacent to these areas. In some cases, the Meredith stations, combined with our existing portfolio will also make Gray the largest local media company in these station states.
Gray and Meredith will only have one overlap market, which is in Flint-Saginaw, Michigan, where Meredith owns the CBS WNEM, and we own the ABC WJRT. While we are very excited to welcome WNEM into the Gray corporate family, at the same time, we are intensely disappointed that government regulations will force us to divorce and divest ABC12. Under Pete Veto's leadership, this station and its great staff have done a tremendous job covering news and serving the people of Flint, Bay City, and Saginaw for many years. Whomever purchases WJRT will be acquiring a sterling asset, a great station, and a fabulous group of people that we very much wish could remain with us after the closing of the Meredith transaction. I'd now like to turn it over to Kevin Latek to make a few brief remarks.
Thank you again, Hilton. The Meredith transaction will augment Gray's position as the nation's largest owner of top-rated local television stations and digital assets. With the addition of the fine stations from Quincy Media that we announced earlier this year, and now Meredith, our portfolio will grow to include 79 markets with the top-rated television station in 101 markets, the first and/or second highest-rated television station. Overall, our company will serve 113 local markets, reaching approximately 36% of U.S. television households. With a combined net revenue exceeding $3.1 billion on a blended 2019, 2020 basis, Gray will become the nation's second largest television broadcaster as measured by revenues. In less than about eight years, we've clearly come a very long way from a regional broadcaster serving just 30 markets.
As explained in our press release, this divestiture is the only regulatory issue raised by Gray's acquisition of the Meredith television station. We will turn, as we always do, immediately to identifying a fully qualified independent party to acquire WJRT. As such, we anticipate a clear path to regulatory approvals, and we fully expect to be able to close this transaction before the end of this year. I now turn the call to Jim to address the transaction economics.
Thank you, Kevin. Most importantly, we expect Meredith transaction will be significantly free cash flow accretive on a per share basis. We've identified an estimated $50 million-$55 million in annualized synergies, which will bring our purchase multiple to approximately 9.7 x blended average Meredith television stations' 2019-2020 operating cash flow. We expect strong free cash flow generation throughout 2021 and 2022 with another strong political advertising cycle with the 2022 year. This will allow Gray to deleverage its capital structure following the closing. Assuming a year-end 2021 closing, we anticipate total leverage ratio net of all cash would approximate 5.3 x on a trailing eight-quarter operating cash flow, including estimated annualized synergies from all announced transactions. I now turn the call back to Hilton.
Thank you very much, Kevin. I'm sorry, Jim. I think I may have heard something wrong, I apologize if I'm stating it incorrectly. The multiple actually would be seven.
I'm sorry. Yes, Hilton, I apologize. It is 7.9x. Let me say that again so it's very clear. 7.9x is our blended buy-side multiple. Please forgive me. I haven't slept in three days.
We're going to check that. Thank you, Jim, for that clarification. Our board, our senior management team, and really I can speak for all of the employees of Gray Television, are very excited about this Meredith transaction and very excited to welcome the men and women, the professional journalists of all of Meredith, soon to the Gray Television family. It moves Gray into larger markets. It provides us with eight more markets with number one and number two ranked television stations. It fills out many of the areas in which our current stations operate, and it adds many excellent broadcast professionals to our ranks.
After the closing of the Meredith transaction and the Quincy transaction, Gray will be the second largest broadcast company in the country with an unparalleled portfolio of employees and television stations, and with a small but rapidly growing role in video and film production services. Pursuing and negotiating this transaction has required tremendous efforts this year, especially alongside our simultaneous work on acquiring Quincy, divesting the assets from Quincy, and then announcing this deal.
Our board of directors and the shareholders of Gray have really been served well by the dedication, expertise, and sacrifice evidenced by everyone on this call, all of our professionals within our company, but most particularly, the transaction team led by Kevin Latek. I want to personally thank them and the many others who have worked so exceptionally hard this year to enable Gray to reach this new pinnacle of success and growth. Thank you all for joining this call. At this time, we will open the line for questions for Pat, Jim, Kevin, Bob, or myself. Operator?
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Again, to ask a question, you need to press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Dan Kurnos from The Benchmark Company. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks. Good morning. Congratulations, guys. Good deal here. Maybe just a couple, just on the retrans versus cost synergy split. Meredith's operating income percentage of revenue's been probably three or maybe four points below industry. Feels like there's sort of some upside there. I know you guys always like to start conservative, but maybe just give us some thoughts on some of the cost synergies you can attack there. Then, Kevin, obviously you've got CBS coming up at the end of the year. This gives you probably some more ammunition. Do you think this changes perhaps the way the conversation goes going forward?
As far as synergies go, of the $55 million, about $25 million is net retrans uplift. The other $30 million is a combination of contractual savings and other general cost savings. I'll let Kevin take the second part of the question.
Yeah, sure. All of the Gray CBS affiliation agreements that we renewed four or five years ago are up at the end of this year. I don't think this transaction will have really much impact. We have, I believe, a pretty strong relationship with each of the networks. Certainly CBS, I'm happy to say. I've been on CBS Affiliate Board for some time. It's led by Patrick McCreery, who runs the Meredith Group. We know the CBS guys very well. We've worked with them for decades in various capacities. I don't think of this as more collaborative in negotiation that we have more to talk about. Our company and CBS, just like our company and other networks, are increasingly tied together through our aligned interests. This transaction is fantastic for lots of reasons. It's nothing, in our minds, any impact on our upcoming negotiations with CBS. I hope that helps.
Got it. No, that is helpful. Just housekeeping, Jim, just how the transaction's being financed?
I'm sorry. I didn't hear that with the little tornado warning.
I was just asking Jim.
Sorry?
I was asking Jim just exactly how the transaction's being financed, just the explicit pieces of it, if you have some more color.
The financing is fully underwritten at this point by Wells Fargo. The actual details of the financing and how we'll split it between senior and other tranches of debt, we will make final determinations based on market conditions as we get closer to the closing date. Similar to what we've done in the last several transactions.
Perfect. Thanks for the color and congrats, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you, and thanks for the question.
Our next question comes from the line of Steven Cahall of Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Thanks, guys. The Meredith stations, they're in some much bigger DMAs. That's, I think, a break from your historical strategy. I think there's a big political opportunity here. I remember just with the Georgia runoff, you had every market in Georgia except Atlanta and Macon. Can you speak a little bit to the political opportunity there? Hilton, you talked about that adjacency opportunity. Just a bigger picture question. I think you said you're the second largest broadcaster after this transaction. The biggest broadcaster, Nexstar, they have about three times your market cap. I guess what I'm thinking here is there's a lot of benefits to scale. There's clearly synergies within the deal, can you speak to a bit of what some of the longer-term benefits are from just the scale that you're going to realize after Quincy and Meredith? Thank you.
Well, thank you. Let me start, then I'll let Kevin follow up, and Jim, as they see fit on this call. If you look at the portfolio of Gray, one of the things that has been a driver behind our acquisition strategy was to be sure that we had significant exposure in politically sensitive states, because that makes every two years a really exciting time for the company. Obviously, with the performance of Gray in 2020 during the election and then the senatorial twin runoffs in Georgia, the company generated an immense sum of free cash flow. One of the truly beneficial things I believe from this acquisition is that we now have, and we know we're going to have a big gubernatorial and senatorial race in Georgia, but we have every market except Macon in Georgia with fantastic stations.
We are completely covering all of Nevada, all of Arizona. We greatly expand our positions, and I think they're going to have really big senatorial races in Missouri because while we're in Springfield in a big way, to pick up St. Louis and Kansas City gives just a huge contiguous area that we can actually really get out there and sell. I look forward to the political races of 2022 with these assets in place. I'm very excited about that, and we expect it to be a big year. Let me ask you again, you had a second question, and that was?
Yeah, that was just about the long-term benefits of scale. You have synergies within the transaction, but if you think kind of the big picture, you're just going to be a much bigger broadcaster than you've been historically. How do you think about the benefits that will accrue over time of just the heft that you'll be at?
Well, if you look at our investor deck, what I think is that we're about two-thirds undervalued as we sit right now. If you compare us to all of our comparables, who have a larger market cap than we do, I think the upside for Gray is stunning because we do now have true scale, national scale. I think that is exceptionally important. The economics of the television station business demand scale. Gray, I think, has had it for some time. I don't think that Wall Street has given us the credit that we deserve for our scale. I hope that this deal cuts through any of the misconceptions because we really now have true national scale, and national scale horizontally, vertically, from big market to small market. I think that it should lead to a significant appreciation in our stock price. We are grossly undervalued. Kevin?
I'm largely echoing what Hilton said from political, and then again, being the second-largest broadcaster. We sometimes have to explain that we're not a small market broadcaster. We do have some big markets already. We have competed for every big market top TV station up for sale for about the last decade. We did not obviously win some of the other stations that were sold the last couple of years, but we said we will be in larger markets when the price is right and the terms work for us, and that opportunity has finally come. I agree with Hilton. This will raise, I think, our image and our leverage across the board for a long time on that stuff.
Yeah.
Sorry for the thunder hurricane. As a background thunder guy.
Yeah. It's Pat. I would just add that some of the best performing stations in our portfolio right now are our largest markets. We are very comfortable taking on the Meredith portfolio. I would also add that given the scale we now have, I think that'll open the door to some more national type footprint opportunities. We're not in 50% of the U.S., but we're in a big chunk of the U.S. with very good television stations that generate real audience. I think over time, you'll see some of that.
Thanks. Different fleet.
That's a good question.
Our next question comes from the line of Aaron Watts of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me on. Congratulations on the announcement. It's been quite a past year for Gray. Congrats again. Just a couple of questions from me. With where you see the leverage at close, 5.3 s, does your ultimate leverage target change going forward? How do we think about the timeframe to get down to that target leverage now and how that impacts your capital allocation policy between now and then?
At 5.3x leverage at year-end, at close, that's really basically the same place or just about the same place we were with Raycom when we closed that. As you feel, that was early 2019. 2019 and 2020, we were down significantly over those two years. We would expect a similar trajectory with this transaction over 2022, 2023, 2024. We've never set a specific leverage target. We had said many times that we would be a little opportunistic depending on M&A opportunities. Of course, this is a fantastic M&A opportunity for us. I think thinking forward, leverage is definitely going to come back down. I don't think it changes our capital allocation thought process at all. This is a very manageable transaction for us. It's a repeat of our playbook over the last six to eight years. It's a great acquisition.
We will focus on bringing leverage down and debt down and continue our current capital allocation strategies.
Okay. Got it.
It will not have any effect upon the board of directors' judgment with regard to our newly announced dividend. As the debt continues to drop, we think we can do it very rapidly as we did post Raycom, and we'll be able to maintain the dividend and increase it in the future.
Okay, great. That's helpful. Just one follow-up on the kind of committed financing, understanding it's fluid at this point. In the past, we've seen you use equity, whether common or preferred, as part of funding for some acquisitions. Is that something that could come into play between now and when the kind of financing's more finalized towards close? I guess secondly, Jim, I noticed that the debt commitment right now is split between first lien term loan and a second lien bridge. Is it something you're considering putting second lien debt permanently into the capital structure? I don't think that's something we've seen in the past. That's it for me. Thank you.
I don't see an equity component in this deal. Certainly, we have been opportunistic when markets have given us the opportunity, but I don't see an equity component in this particular transaction. As far as the ultimate mix, you are correct about the first lien and the senior second structure of the commitment. That is the initial commitment, and as I said earlier, we will determine final mix of debt components when we go to market closer to the closing date, and obviously that will depend on market conditions at the time.
Okay, thank you very much.
Our next question comes from the line of Jim Goss at Barrington Research. Your line is open.
Thanks very much, and congratulations. This should probably be directed first to Pat. To the extent that while you may have some larger markets, you've generally been smaller in mid-market, and the larger market dynamics are different in terms of the political shares you might get, given the greater competition and the audience shares. I'm wondering if you might comment on the anticipated changes in your management strategy to address this greater group of larger markets.
I would just repeat what I said earlier. I think we have a very capable management team. We're looking forward to welcoming some of the Meredith folks in. I would say, given that we've operated Cleveland, Charlotte, Cincinnati, West Palm Beach, they're a little smaller than perhaps some of the volume in some of the Meredith markets, but there's not a significant difference in the way you operate Cleveland relative to the way you operate Phoenix or Atlanta. We feel pretty comfortable with the way we're set up. On the political side, we have an excellent political footprint right now. We're adding to it.
I think that given we are now sort of virtually statewide in a lot of markets, I think that gives us a little bit of leverage in potentially helping out some stations that may not have the same audience profile as some of the strong stations we have right now. I guess to answer your question specifically, we feel pretty good about where we are in terms of management.
All right. Maybe one other involving the national footprint might create some national programming opportunities. Is that something that's part and parcel of this acquisition and your strategy going forward?
Not really. I think we're looking more along the ad sales opportunities than programming opportunities.
Okay. Lastly, just a comment to Jim and Kevin. You've had a very busy several years, very impressive. Congratulations to both of you. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Alan Gould of Loop Capital. Your line is open.
Thank you for taking the question, and congratulations on the deal. A few questions. Can you tell us what the free cash flow was for Meredith in the 2019-2020 time period?
We can't get into specifics like that with a public on public. We think free cash flow on a go-forward basis is highly accretive on a per share basis. I would phrase that as somewhere in the low to mid-30s is what we're expecting in accretion.
Low to mid-30s% on a free cash flow per share basis.
That would be a general expectation of ours on a go-forward basis, yes.
Okay. On capital allocation, should we assume share buybacks will be put on hold until the leverage gets back down closer to the 4.0 leverage ratio?
As I said earlier, we don't view this transaction as changing our capital allocation policies, and Hilton Howell's already specifically mentioned that the dividend will remain.
Our buyback has historically been opportunistic, and I would reiterate that we don't intend to change our capital allocation policies.
Okay. Lastly, on the slide deck, you show the Meredith's Local Media Group showing $286 million of blended OCF and a 37% margin. That excludes the $55 million of synergies. The $55 million of synergies would be on top of that because they add seven percentage points. I realize some of it probably goes against Gray, mostly I think it goes against Meredith, those synergies, correct?
Yes. Those are Meredith synergies.
It'd be $55 million on top of the $286, which takes the margin up from 37% to 44%?
We need to let you focus on the materials that were furnished in that deck and to the 8-K and not verbally add to what is in the deck.
Okay.
We'll do some.
Thank you.
We'll do some math and modeling around what's in there, but we can't really go beyond to answer that question. I'm sorry.
Understood, Kevin. Thanks, and congratulations again on the deal.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Our next question comes from the line of John Kornreich of JK Media. Your line is open.
I have a real, just a quickie arithmetic. Obviously, if you take $2.7 billion and divide it by 7.9, you get over $340 million. The question is, when you say it's 19/20 operating cash flow, whose operating cash flow? Fiscal June 2020 for Meredith or your calendar?
Our calendar, that's a two-year blended average.
Okay. For 19/20 calendar. I just brought that up because if it's a June Meredith year, that doesn't include the blowout political influence.
Okay, John.
Yes.
We're calendar year.
I got the clarification. It's two calendar years blended. Okay.
Correct.
Thanks again.
Certainly, John.
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Kupinski of Noble Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Thank you. First I want to offer my congratulations. It seems like a great fit for you guys. I'm very excited for you. While many would look at the scale that you have for retrans and political, and I think Jim Goss touched on this, I was wondering if you can give us some thoughts about maybe your strategies now that you have national scale and you are a leader in the industry, and maybe your thoughts on ATSC 3.0, your digital strategies, how this might accelerate or enhance any of your longer-term plans.
This is Kevin. On ATSC 3.0, at this point, Gray has only launched one TV station in 3.0. It's a low power in Tallahassee. That was done really for us to get smart on it and do it ourselves so we understand what's involved. The first Gray market that is scheduled to have 3.0 transition would be Charlotte. That has not happened yet. It's starting this year. We have Moroch the races. We have a bunch that will come after that in the current Gray portfolio. Meredith has been in the forefront here of the 3.0 transition. Phoenix and Portland had transitioned. Those may be the two of the first three markets that went. We're going to learn a lot from them.
With the combined portfolio, 3.0 is certainly going to be much more of a near-term experience for us going forward than what legacy Gray would otherwise confront. I think Pat mentioned that we think that there are digital revenue opportunities here that are not included in our synergy numbers, and that results from Premion, which we use very well within our company, our own digital sales results. It's combo-sized stations. Then again, as Pat was mentioning, the network effect of having a critical mass of the U.S. that we believe will help us with both our digital strategy and a national advertising strategy. Again, revenue synergies other than retransmission are not included in any synergy number that we talk about. Those are, we think, certainly achievable, but not something that we put numbers on in any presentation on this deal or any other deal.
Okay. As you focus on your national ad sales, can you talk a little bit about how you see the mix between local versus national over the next several years as you execute on your strategy?
Yeah. Right now, local, national is what, 80/20, give or take. I wouldn't expect it to change that dramatically, but I do expect local to grow. Again, I don't think you'll see any dramatic shift there. As Kevin mentioned, as I mentioned before, we're going to take a crack at some new approaches in the ad sales side of our business, and we think there's upside there.
Okay, great. Congratulations again.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Monty Taylor of Commedia. Your line is open.
Thanks for doing this. I was wondering if this deal and the Quincy deal, if all these deals are at all motivated by concern about ownership rules getting tougher down the road. You got a Democratic FCC. We had the Prometheus ruling. Are you trying to get in under the wire, or is that just not a real concern for this sort of thing?
Hi, Monty. It's Kevin. The change in administrations has never entered into our calculus or our thoughts. We acquired Hoak Media under the latter years of the Obama administration. We obviously did Raycom under the Trump administration. This is where we are. We've been able to grow this company from the 30 markets we were in as of the fourth quarter of 2013, where we are today, and where we're going, regardless of the administration. The ownership rules haven't really changed, as we all know, since the 1940s. Their policies will tighten and loosen, but they've had no impact on our strategy. Our strategy is to buy and grow the company through acquiring high-quality assets and in any market size. Even with this transaction, Monty, you saw it in the press release, we will be at 36% of U.S. households, assuming there is no UHF discount.
That means even if the discount went away under this administration, we still have room to grow the company. Not to imply that that's what's on our mind. Our mind right now is to close Quincy and to close Meredith. That is our priority. We're not up against any national ownership cap. In announcing Quincy, announcing the Allen divestiture, and now announcing Meredith, you'll see we are not looking to put together two big four TV stations. We have never done a transaction with regulatory overlaps. We've brought in a friendly third party and created SSAs as part of the transaction. We have spun off stations to independent third parties with no financing guarantee from Gray, no financing from Gray, no special deals, no SSAs, JSAs, you name it. We have sometimes dealt with very large broadcasters.
We've done a whole bunch of divestitures with parties over the last several years who are new entrants and women and minorities, and that was regardless of the presidential administration. We're trying to do the best we can for our company, for the overall industry. Just come back to the headline, the change in administration and quote, unquote, getting in under the rules has absolutely no bearing on what we're doing here. We are well below the rules. We are not asking for rule waivers here. Other than selling WJRT, which we assume and believe will be done quickly and easily, this is a clean transaction from a DOJ and FCC standpoint.
Thank you, Kevin.
Sure thing, Monty.
Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question comes from the line of Cameron Bell of Keyton. Your line is open.
Thanks for taking my question. Just real quick, of the $55 million in synergies, how much of that do you think comes from retransmission fee step-ups?
Approximately $25 million.
Great. Thanks very much.
Again, if you would like to ask a question, you can press star one on your telephone. There are no further questions at this time. We have additional questions from Adam Jacobson of Radio and Television. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, everybody, and congratulations. Sorry for the late question here. In particular, there are some key markets where I believe that there'll be some significant synergies. Two of those markets include Atlanta and Phoenix, where you'll be competing against company TEGNA. I'm wondering if when you look at the particular local TV competitors and the continued discussions of M&As, what this really brings to Gray in those particular markets, which are certainly getting a lot of looks, at least from the broker side and from other companies that you compete with that are looking to grow. Of course, with the new census numbers, Atlanta and Phoenix seem particularly intriguing because of just the population growth. I'm wondering what the future lies when we look at those specific DMAs.
Hey, Adam. It's Kevin again.
Hi, Kevin.
I echo what Hilton said on the call. We're terribly excited to be in some larger markets, especially Atlanta, our home market here. Certainly Phoenix, a very fast-growing market, and Las Vegas, another fast-growing market, where we also own a strong TV station on the other side of the state. Again, you don't call Meredith up and say, "We need a TV station in Phoenix." That's not the way, obviously, these work. This was about a conversation with Meredith that turned into a conversation about acquiring the Local Media Group and the transaction announced today. We obviously would not have been terribly interested in Meredith if they didn't have very good assets and really great markets. I hope that helps.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yes. Thank you.
I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Hilton Howell for the closing remarks.
Thank you, Lily. Well, thank you all for joining us this morning. It's a red letter day for Gray Television. I'm happy to see that the market has reacted well to this announcement. I'm really thrilled for this transaction because it's a win-win for both companies. It's a win for Gray, but it's also a great win for Meredith, and we wish them the absolute best and look forward to bringing this transaction and our Quincy transaction and our divestitures to a close as soon as possible here in 2021. Thank you all, and we will talk to you later this week on our earnings call.
Thank you all for participating. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Presenters, please stay on the line for a-