WENR Corp. (WNRC)

[EquityTrader]

Charter is trying to find a buyer for Los Angeles...This would leave Reno as an orphan. I'd love to see Satview get things going along the I80 Corridor and end up running the Reno location.

Far fetched? Not as far fetched as you may think. Reno would probably be sold for ($200-300 Million - maybe less). Satview could come up with 10% ($20-30 million) then do factoring for the rest.

RENO has 271,000+ in it's market...assume even 40% have cable TV...that is more than 100,000 in Charter's bag.

Wouldn't that be something? :D

By ANUPREETA DAS
Cable-television operator Charter Communications Inc. is seeking buyers for its Los Angeles-area business, which has about 400,000 subscribers, and the assets could fetch between $1.5 billion to $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

Charter has picked Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to shop the block of subscribers to rival cable companies and private-equity firms these people said. They cautioned that Charter could decide not to sell the assets if the offers fall short of the desired price.

Time Warner Cable Inc., a dominant player in the Los Angeles area, is expected to be a contender for the Charter assets. The auction of Charter's assets hasn't begun yet, and financial information will be sent to potential bidders in coming weeks, they said.

Charter, which has about five million residential and commercial subscribers in more than 25 states, offers cable TV, phone and broadband services, and is the fourth-largest U.S. cable operator after Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable and privately held Cox Communications.

Time Warner Cable has 1.7 million subscribers in the Los Angeles area, followed, among other operators, by Charter and Cox, which has about 260,000 subscribers, according to data from SNL Kagan.

Representatives for Charter, Goldman, Citigroup and Time Warner Cable declined to comment.

Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt said his company would be disciplined about acquisitions and not pay "any price," when he was asked about Charter's Los Angeles business on Thursday during an earnings conference call.

"It has been rumored and reported in the press that the Charter property is going to come to market," Mr. Britt said. "I won't comment on it specifically other than to say that we're going to evaluate it like we look at all acquisitions… and evaluate it versus other investment alternatives including buying our shares back."

Industry publication Multichannel News earlier reported that Charter was exploring a sale of its Los Angeles business.

Charter filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009 and reduced its $21 billion debt load by 40% through the reorganization process that ended the same year. Private-equity giant Apollo Global Management, which bought up most of Charter's debt during the bankruptcy, now owns a chunk of the equity. As of Friday, Charter had a market capitalization of $6.7 billion.

The ongoing auction of another cable operator, Insight Communications, may have spurred Charter to explore a sale of its Los Angeles assets. Controlled by the Carlyle Group and two other buyout firms, Insight has about 691,000 subscribers in the Midwest and could fetch more than $3.5 billion in a sale, people familiar with the matter said. The price tag includes Insight's debt. Industry bankers say Insight's asking price is on the high end of the average multiple paid for similar cable assets.

Representatives for Carlyle and Insight were not immediately reachable.

Cable operators have always been attractive to private-equity firms because they have a steady income stream from subscriptions. Buyout firms, which pay for acquisitions using mostly debt, find it easier to borrow money against stable cash-flow businesses because interest on the debt can be paid regularly, reducing the risk of default.

In March, Mediacom Communications Corp., the country's eighth-largest cable company, closed a deal to go private, selling its publicly traded shares to its chief executive and majority owner, Rocco Commisso.

Still, large cable players such as Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Systems Corp. are considered active pursuers of smaller rivals. Last year, Cablevision outbid several buyout firms to buy Bresnan Communications for $1.4 billion.

—Sam Schechner contributed to this article.
Write to Anupreeta Das at [e-mail]



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