Warner Bros Discovery Inc. is looking to buy back notes as the company works to slash its debt load following its merger last year.
(Bloomberg) — Warner Bros Discovery Inc. is looking to buy back notes as the company works to slash its debt load following its merger last year.
The New York-based media giant plans to repurchase as much as $2.7 billion of bonds maturing between December 2023 and June 2024, according to a Thursday statement.
This is the latest effort by the firm to manage its $50 billion outstanding debt load. The conglomerate was formed in 2022 through a merger of AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. In March 2022, AT&T and Discovery raised $30 billion in the bond market for the combination of their media businesses in one of the biggest corporate debt offerings ever.
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More recently, the company tapped the investment-grade market to raise $1.5 billion in March and launched a $500 million bond buyback in June.
The company paid down $1.6 billion of debt in the second quarter, which brings its tally of total debt retired prior to Thursday’s tender offer to $9 billion since the merger, according to a conference call.
“We expect to be comfortably below four times levered by the end of the year,” David Zaslav, chief executive officer at Warner Bros Discovery said on the call to investors. It’s on track to be “firmly within the investment-grade rating by mid-point next year.”
The company has a target of 2.5 times to 3 times gross leverage by the end of 2024. It generated over $1.7 billion in free cash flow in the last quarter and is expecting about the same for the third quarter.
BofA Securities, Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and RBC Capital Markets, LLC will act as the dealer-managers on the offer. Each tender offer is set to expire at 5 p.m. ET on Aug. 9.
Warner Bros Discovery didn’t immediately respond to a call for comment.
–With assistance from James Crombie.
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