Just hours after Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) officially confirmed that their marriage is off comes word that Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR) is preparing to make its next bid for TWC.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing "individuals close to Charter," the MSO is already laying the groundwork to approach TWC with a new bid, higher than the one it made in January 2014, right before Comcast swooped in with the deal that was ultimately rejected by federal regulators.
News that Charter is preparing for such a bid is hardly surprising. The company's primary investor, Liberty Global Chairman John Malone, emphatically said his company would take another run at TWC if Comcast's $45.2 billion bid fell short.
And earlier on Friday, Laura Martin, analyst for Needham and Company, told investors that Charter will probably have its bid in for TWC in the next three months.
If the WSJ is correct, of course, it could be sooner than that.
Charter has already secured financing to purchase millions of cable subscribers from Comcast and TWC in a related deal that was also scuttled Friday.
The company also has committed $10.6 billion to purchasing another MSO, Bright House Networks.
With Bright House sharing myriad infrastructural elements with TWC, including technology, some analysts feel its proposed purchase was a run-up to an eventual TWC bid.
Asked by FierceCable Friday if Charter would continue on with its plan to acquire Bright House, Martin replied, "It depends if they get TWC."
For more:
- read this Wall Street Journal story
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