So much for taking a breather.
European telecom giant Altice N.V., just two months after spinning off its U.S. cable operations into a separate publicly traded company, is apparently weighing the possibility of going after the second biggest fish in the domestic pond—Charter Communications.
According to CNBC,Altice N.V. chairman and founder Patrick Drahi is lining up bankers to launch a possible takeover of Charter, the second largest cable company in the country, with 17 million video customers. While there is no guarantee Altice would actually make a formal bid, the company has long coveted Charter assets. It was an early bidder forTime Warner Cablein 2015, a prize thatCharter eventually won with a bid of more than $80 billion.
Analysts have estimated that any bid for Charter would have to be north of $500 per share to get the company’s attention. That would value the MSO at more than $200 billion.
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