Charter confirms Time Warner Cable takeover in deal worth $55.33 billion
Charter Communications on Tuesday confirmed plans to buy fellow cable operator Time Warner Cable for $55.33 billion, as well as smaller cable outfit Bright House Networks for $10.4 billion.
As suggested by reports on Monday, the TWC takeover is being backed by Liberty Broadcast, which owns over a quarter of Charter's stock, the Associated Press said. If both purchases are approved Charter will have almost 24 million customers, making it a giant in the U.S. cable and Internet industries.
Comcast, by comparison, has approximately 27.2 million customers. AT&T's pending purchase of DirecTV should give it a combined 26.4 million TV subscribers and 16.1 million Internet users.
In the TWC acquisition, Charter is paying $100 in cash and shares of a new parent company, equal to 0.5409 shares of Charter for each current TWC share. The deal values TWC shares at $195.71 apiece.
It remains to be seen if government regulators will approve the arrangement. Comcast backed out of buying TWC for $45.2 billion just last month, after regulators indicated they would likely block the transaction. The main worry was that a combined Comcast/TWC entity would have controlled much of the U.S. media landscape, including many TV networks.
Charter first tried to pick up TWC in 2013, ultimately resorting to a failed hostile takeover. This year the company went for a softer approach, and the Wall Street Journal said that Liberty Broadband owner John Malone recently called TWC CEO Rob Marcus to signal friendly intentions. Liberty should end up owning about 20 percent of the new Charter.
As suggested by reports on Monday, the TWC takeover is being backed by Liberty Broadcast, which owns over a quarter of Charter's stock, the Associated Press said. If both purchases are approved Charter will have almost 24 million customers, making it a giant in the U.S. cable and Internet industries.
Comcast, by comparison, has approximately 27.2 million customers. AT&T's pending purchase of DirecTV should give it a combined 26.4 million TV subscribers and 16.1 million Internet users.
In the TWC acquisition, Charter is paying $100 in cash and shares of a new parent company, equal to 0.5409 shares of Charter for each current TWC share. The deal values TWC shares at $195.71 apiece.
It remains to be seen if government regulators will approve the arrangement. Comcast backed out of buying TWC for $45.2 billion just last month, after regulators indicated they would likely block the transaction. The main worry was that a combined Comcast/TWC entity would have controlled much of the U.S. media landscape, including many TV networks.
Charter first tried to pick up TWC in 2013, ultimately resorting to a failed hostile takeover. This year the company went for a softer approach, and the Wall Street Journal said that Liberty Broadband owner John Malone recently called TWC CEO Rob Marcus to signal friendly intentions. Liberty should end up owning about 20 percent of the new Charter.
Comments
Why, oh why can't we have competition???!!!
You can't have competition because politicians + business interest donations = you know the rest.
Mergers happen because growth and increased shareholder returns are "legally" required and in this economy, a merger is a quick path to growth.
You can't have competition because politicians + business interest donations = you know the rest.
Yeah, I know. It's odd how we who live in a country that lives and breathes competition, yet when it comes to competition for high-speed Internet, we're SOL.
Mergers happen because growth and increased shareholder returns are "legally" required and in this economy, a merger is a quick path to growth.
You're going to have to cite that particular law.
It's baked into a corporation's fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders and board members, thus the quotes.
Charter is [U]by far the worst[/U] service company that I've ever dealt with as far as constantly changing and increasing fees; let alone what a P.I.T.A. it is to get a fluent English speaker on the phone in customer service who actually knows what they're talking about. And with increasing monopoly power, it's only going to get worse.
I used to have Charter. I did not like them much in the beginning. But as time went by it got better. I had to move and now I have Comcast and I long for the time when I had Charter.
Things could be worse.
Ugh. I'm in a TWC market, and they're the best option right now. Hopefully I'll have Google Fiber available by the end of the year though, then I can at least get pissed off about a different company's customer service for a few years.