Late Friday, AT&T and Time Warner were reported to have entered an agreement in principle for the former to take over the latter for $85 billion.

Brian Santo, Senior editor, Test & Measurement / Components, Light Reading

October 21, 2016

2 Min Read
That Was Quick: AT&T to Buy Time Warner for $85B

Late Friday, AT&T and Time Warner were reported to have entered an agreement in principle for the former to take over the latter for $85 billion.

Thomson Reuters cited unnamed sources who said AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is set to pay $110 a share. With some legal jots and tittles left to take care of, the deal could be finalized as early as Sunday.

Either the two were successful in keeping their talks quiet or they agreed to the deal incredibly quickly. As early as this morning, the negotiations between them were being characterized as still informal. (See AT&T & Time Warner in Merger Talks – Report.)

With the acquisition, AT&T is pacing one of its main rivals, Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK). In 2013, Comcast finished a years-long process of buying NBC-Universal, thereby creating a model for the big, vertically integrated media company.

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Or, to be more accurate, recreating that model. The Comcast-NBC combination is functionally similar to Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) as it was constituted the first years of this century. Time Warner owned Time Warner Cable, but Wall Street, after years of pressure, finally succeeded in forcing Time Warner to spin off the MSO. Investors insisted that big, vertically integrated media companies cannot work, and they devalued Time Warner stock until an unconvinced Time Warner had no choice but to acquiesce, if not agree.

It wasn't long before Comcast began its acquisition of NBC-Universal, and since the completion of that deal, there's been speculation that some of Comcast's biggest rivals would feel compelled to follow suit.

Time Warner has been one obvious takeover target. Several companies, including 20th Century Fox and reportedly Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), have made overtures to TW.

But there's no small amount of irony that of all companies, it's Time Warner that AT&T will buy to become a big, vertically integrated media company.

— Brian Santo, Senior Editor, Components, T&M, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Brian Santo

Senior editor, Test & Measurement / Components, Light Reading

Santo joined Light Reading on September 14, 2015, with a mission to turn the test & measurement and components sectors upside down and then see what falls out, photograph the debris and then write about it in a manner befitting his vast experience. That experience includes more than nine years at video and broadband industry publication CED, where he was editor-in-chief until May 2015. He previously worked as an analyst at SNL Kagan, as Technology Editor of Cable World and held various editorial roles at Electronic Engineering Times, IEEE Spectrum and Electronic News. Santo has also made and sold bedroom furniture, which is not directly relevant to his role at Light Reading but which has already earned him the nickname 'Cribmaster.'

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