BUSINESSNEWS

Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion

Comcast-Time-Warner-Cable-1Comcast Corp is buying Time Warner Cable Inc for $45.2 billion in an all-stock deal, combining the nation’s two largest cable operators, according to people familiar with the matter.

The friendly takeover comes as a surprise after months of public pursuit of Time Warner Cable by smaller rival Charter Communications Inc  Comcast will pay $158.82 per share, which is roughly what Time Warner Cable demanded from Charter, and the deal will be announced on Thursday morning.

The combined company would divest 3 million subscribers, about a quarter of Time Warner’s 12 million customers, the people said. 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.

Courtesy: Reuters

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