Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has revealed a new US$365.7m stake in US cableco Charter Communications.
Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire disclosed in a quarterly report that it held about 2.3 million shares in Charter on 30 June, valued at…
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has revealed a new US$365.7m stake in US cableco Charter Communications.
Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire disclosed in a quarterly report that it held about 2.3 million shares in Charter on 30 June, valued at US$365.7m.
It also revealed that the stake it holds in satellite broadcaster DirecTV, which is being acquired by US telecoms giant A&T, was scaled down about 32% during the quarter to about 23.5 million shares, valued at close to US$2bn.
Charter, the US’ fourth-largest cableco, has agreed to buy subscribers being divested by larger rivals Comcast and Time Warner Cable (TWC) to help secure regulatory approvals for their planned US$40bn-plus merger.
Under the plan, Charter will acquire 1.4 million TWC customers for an undisclosed sum once the merger with Comcast has closed, taking Charter’s subscriber base to 5.7 million and making it the US’ second-largest cableco.
Charter, whose controlling shareholder is John Malone’s Liberty Media, has also agreed to contribute users to a new operator, SpinCo, set to be hived off from Comcast.
Liberty Media CFO Greg Maffei described Charter to Bloomberg earlier this month as a “logical acquirer” of cable assets.
Meanwhile, Texas-based telco AT&T’s planned US$48.5bn takeover of DirecTV is also awaiting regulatory approval. Berkshire portfolio managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler issued a statement supporting the deal when it was announced back in May.
