AOL Time Warner Inc. has completed its planned restructuring of the Time
Warner Entertainment L.P. partnership with Comcast Corp., giving AOL Time Warner
full control of the content assets in TWE and providing Comcast with about $3.6
billion in cash and stock.
AOL Time Warner retains full control of Home Box Office and the Warner Bros.
film studio, as well as TWE's interests in The WB Television Network, Comedy
Central and Courtroom Television Network.
AOL Time Warner and AT&T Broadband -- which Comcast acquired in November
-- first announced the restructuring of TWE in August.
Comcast received AOL Time Warner preferred stock for its 27.6 percent
interest in TWE, which will be converted into $1.5 billion of AOL Time Warner
common shares. Comcast also gets a 21 percent economic stake in AOL Time
Warner's cable operations, Time Warner Cable Inc. In addition, Comcast received
$2.1 billion in cash from Time Warner Cable.
AOL Time Warner -- which keeps a 79 percent interest in Time Warner Cable and
its 10.9 million cable customers -- plans an initial public offering of the
cable unit later this year.
Comcast also agreed to carry AOL Time Warner's high-speed-data service, AOL
Broadband, on its systems for three years.
According to the August agreement, AOL Broadband was to be initially be
rolled out in two AT&T Broadband markets, Boston and Seattle, and two
Comcast markets, Indianapolis and Nashville, Tenn.
A total of 10 million homes will have access to the service within two years.
That rollout is expected to begin in the next few months.
Comcast has a total of about 22 million subscribers.
