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Now Altice is Considering a Bid for Charter
Altice is the latest cable company looking to take advantage of the recent obsession with mergers and acquisitions and is contemplating a bid for Charter Communications. Insiders familiar with the company's plan tell CNBC that French-owned Altice and its Altice USA subsidiary are putting together a proposal to acquire Charter, but have yet submitted the proposal to either Charter or Altice financial advisors. Altice has made no secret of its desire to grow larger after acquiring both Cablevision (Optimum) and Suddenlink in recent years. Like Sprint and Verizon, Altice may lack the financial resources or shareholder motivation to reach Charter's steep asking price.

Most recommended from 44 comments



maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

23 recommendations

maartena

Premium Member

Megacorporations

Pretty soon you can only choose one provider for your television and internet need, "MegaCorp, Inc.". They will have bought all cable, satellite, and telecommunication outlets..... and will have done so under the guise of "we will provide better service".

We need more competition. Not less.

mikesterr
join:2008-04-18
Sanford, FL

11 recommendations

mikesterr

Member

no one going to be happy

I have not heard anyone in a territory that was recently acquired by Altice stating they were happy with the new management. I know from experience no one in the territories picked up by Charter are happy. I can only see this causing even more unhappiness all around.

Anon05071
@2604:6000.x

7 recommendations

Anon05071

Anon

BUTTT 70% of Charter

customers from the TWC merger have not been put on Jacked up rates yet. That has to be done first right??

Chris 313
Because It's Geekier
Premium Member
join:2004-07-18
Houma, LA
·AT&T FTTP
·Comcast XFINITY

7 recommendations

Chris 313

Premium Member

Forget Charter

While Altice buying Charter would be a great thing, considering all the potential, they need to focus on digesting and upgrading what they already have. Having an entire footprint of like 10 mil people on fiber would be infinitely more profitable, then dealing with trying to do that while trying to choke down a 100+ billion buy of a bunch of systems in various states of upgrade or non-upgrade as the Charter forum says. Then there's the matter of trying to upgrade all that to Fiber as well. Nice trick if you can manage it, but I doubt it.

Lack of resources and confidence, indeed.

n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

5 recommendations

n2jtx

Member

Tom Rutledge

It would be funny if Altice bought Charter since their CEO Tom Rutledge had been a Cablevision VP for a long time.
techguru308
join:2016-05-19
Cincinnati, OH

4 recommendations

techguru308

Member

Does anybody really want Atlice buying out Charter Communications?

Does anybody really want Atlice buying out Charter Communications? Considering Patrick Drahi cost cutting. Here is an example of some of the cost cutting. "That kind of cost-cutting is a tall order in any market, but will be especially so in New York, where Altice will be going up against Verizon FiOS,” Moffett wrote. “Cost reductions like those won’t just mean cutting SG&A. It will mean slashing customer service; repair and maintenance, and sales and marketing (specifically, channel mix optimization, and back-office upgrades). It’s hard not to imagine that that might have at least some impact on market share.” Here is the link to the web page I got the quote from. »www.multichannel.com/new ··· s/393866

atuarre
Here come the drums
Premium Member
join:2004-02-14
EC/SETX SWLA

4 recommendations

atuarre

Premium Member

RE

So Altice claims they are going to do FTTH but then why waste money on acquiring Charter. Put the money into your network so you can get FTTH rolled out.

geek
Mad Scientist at Work
Premium Member
join:2002-01-07
Southbury, CT

3 recommendations

geek

Premium Member

Buy Frontier!

Think about it.
1. You need to basically rebuild infrastructure. Frontier desperately needs this.
2. Frontier is waaaay cheaper.
3. Frontier does have some good territory.

So why not Frontier instead of Charter?
Corporate
join:2014-10-04

3 recommendations

Corporate

Member

Now this is getting ridiculous!

Someone needs to make a move already.

This whole merger speculation thing is getting old.

Anond15dd
@2600:1017.x

3 recommendations

Anond15dd

Anon

FTTH bye

Say goodbye to FTTH if this happens.
techguru308
join:2016-05-19
Cincinnati, OH

2 recommendations

techguru308

Member

Not going to happen!

Not going to happen! Charter Communications has already rejected buy out offers from Verizon and Soft Bank/Sprint. I see no reason why Atlice will be successful when other offers were rejected and Charter Communications has made it clear they are not interested in selling at this time.