said by markopoleo:Still they have did good in the last 2 years, they shaved 1.5billion of it off.
I think what most people don't realize is that most of that debt is from purchasing of other cable outfits in the early/late 90s. Mind you approved by loan companies..
Yes its a big debt, but other communications companies have debts close to that and have been hanging on for a LONG time.
The debt was from purchasing other cable system at very high prices, Charter wanted to get big fast and they did that by buying anything they could get their hands on. The side effect was that they and Adelphia bought systems well above their true value which needed upgrades and other large capital expenditures. They also bought very remote non cluster'able systems with little ability to collapse hubsites and save on economies of scale. In the end the debt is from buying systems they probably shouldn't have bought in the first place!
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