Did Verizon Offer $100 Billion for Cable Company Charter?

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 11:29AM EST · Published Jun 1, 5:09AM EDT

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Did one of the largest telecom companies in the country offer to takeover one of the largest cable companies? The New York Post reports that Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) offered about $100 billion to takeover Charter Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: CHTR). The marriage would create the largest TV to the home, broadband and wireless corporation in America. It would also be one of the largest content companies, due in some part to Verizon’s ownership of AOL and upcoming buyout of Yahoo.

According to the Post:

The offer — valued at between $350 and $400 a share, and well over $100 billion, according to two of the sources familiar with the move — was rejected by Liberty Media-controlled Charter because it was too low — and because Charter was not ready to sell.

The offer was made in recent months.

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Verizon faces the challenge that rival AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is in the midst of a takeover of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), which will give it a huge and growing library of content. AT&T also has a large network of wireless subscribers, matched only by Verizon. AT&T additionally has a fiber to the home business and its traditional landline business. Charter has also grown via acquisitions. It bought Time Warner Cable in 2015 for $55 billion. And Verizon must also face the fact that Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA), the largest cable company in America, has the content assets of its NBCUniversal operations.

The growing number of marriages among carriers and content companies has been driven by management perceptions that they are better off owning the conduit to the home and the smartphone along with much of the content these same customers want. The two primary hurdles to the plans are government regulation, which may keep companies from controlling too many assets and threatening consumer choices, and the billions of dollars of debt involved in the acquisitions.

None of the hurdles has prevented buyouts. The Verizon and Charter rumor is another piece of evidence of that.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.