Bright House Communications is backing away from an earlier-agreed-upon $10.4 billion deal to be acquired by Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR).
So reports Reuters, which cites unnamed sources close to the privately held Bright House. According to the report, parent company Advance Newhouse believes there's no longer an advantage being acquired by the No. 4-sized cable company following the dissolution of the Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) merger agreement with Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC).
Bright House's ties with TWC are run deep and include, to this day, the No. 2 cable company negotiating program rights for Bright House. According to Reuters, the Newhouse family, which also owns Conde Nast, doesn't believe that combining with Charter will improve that leverage position.
Charter and Bright House agreed to merge in March in a deal that would give the former solid inroads to the Florida market. The two sides agreed to renegotiate the deal if the $45 billion Comcast-TWC merger was rejected by federal regulators, which it eventually was.
Separately, Charter has engaged TWC in acquisitions talks, and there has also been speculation that TWC might be interested in purchasing Bright House for itself.
Earlier this week, Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) CEO James Dolan inserted a new layer of complexity into cable's rampant M&A discussions, openly asking TWC CEO Rob Marcus to purchase his company on an INTX panel.
For more:
- read this Reuters story
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