Charter Communications filed a registration statement Dec. 31 with the Securities and Exchange Commission for 77.9 million shares of stock valued at $2.7 billion, setting the stage for the eventual issuance of its new shares.
Charter said it would receive no proceeds from the sale of the stock — it is being sold by current bondholders, including funds affiliated with AP Charter Holdings, Oaktree Opportunities Investment and Franklin Custodial Funds. According to the SEC filing, AP Charter Holdings (a unit of Charter's largest bondholder, Apollo Asset Management) is the biggest seller, planning to shed about 32.2 million shares, reducing its holdings of Class A-Common stock to 3.47 million shares, or about 3.1% of total shares outstanding. Oaktree plans to sell about 16.4 million shares (reducing its holdings to 3.7 million shares, or 3.3% of outstanding stock) and Franklin plans to shed 14.1 million shares (leaving it with 7.5 million Charter shares, or 6.5% of the outstanding stock. No date has been set for the offering.
The company set a maximum offering price of $34.50 per share for the stock in the filing. Charter said that it will have about 112.6 million shares outstanding. It plans to issue its new shares sometime after Jan. 14. Charter shares have been trading on the over the counter bulletin board under the symbol “CCMM” on a when-issued basis since Dec. 2. The stock was flat at $35 on Jan. 7.
