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| My favorite Time Warner fail. UK plays a game, which is replaced by Backyard Wrastlin’ for a half. Kenneth absolutely nailed the comment. |
(Reuters) –
Comcast Corp said on Thursday it would buy Time Warner
Cable Inc for $45.2 billion in an all-stock deal that combines the two largest
U.S. cable operators.
The
friendly takeover comes as a surprise after months of public pursuit of Time Warner
Cable by smaller rival Charter Communications Inc, and immediately raised
questions as to whether it would pass regulatory scrutiny.
Comcast
will pay $158.82 per share, which is roughly what Time Warner Cable demanded
from Charter.
The
combined company would divest 3 million subscribers, about a quarter of Time
Warner’s 12 million customers. Together with Comcast’s 22 million video
subscribers, the roughly 30 million total would represent just under 30 percent
of the U.S. pay television video market.
The new
cable giant would tower over its closest video competitor, DirecTV, which has
about 20 million video customers.
If
successful, the deal will be the second time in little more than a year that
Comcast has helped reshape the U.S. media landscape after its $17 billion
acquisition of NBC Universal was completed in 2013.
The
proposed combination, which would give roughly 23 percent of the merged company
to Time Warner Cable shareholders, is subject to regulatory approval and the
two companies expect to close the deal by the end of the year.
(By Liana B. Baker, additional
reporting by Alina Selyukh;
Editing by Soyoung Kim,
Edward Tobin)
