Liberty Media says not finished looking at Time Warner Cable, other possibilities
Tom Paine
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Despite Comcast's agreement to acquire Time Warner Cable, Liberty Media President & CEO
Greg Maffei says Liberty, which owns 27% of Charter Communications, is still looking at
opportunities to increase its subscriber base, trade pub Variety reported.
“We will certainly not take anything off the table in terms of what we think are in the best interests of Liberty Media shareholders,” Maffei said, speaking at Liberty's 4th quarter 2013 earnings conference call today.
Charter had bid $37 billion for TWC before Comcast swooped in with a $45 billion bid earlier this month.
Maffei indicated that Liberty could be interested in systems that Comcast might divest,
or would be prepared to act if the Comcast/TWC deal breaks up for any reason, though he
doesn't expect it to. Comcast had said it would probably divest three million subscribers
if it completed the deal. Maffei did suggest that the conditions for approving the merger
could be so burdensome to Comcast that it might consider other options.
Maffei indicated that Liberty had received plenty of interest from potential co-investors interested in participating in Liberty's consolidation strategy. Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said last week that "we are still interested in wisely acquiring subscribers."
