It's tough to find a precedent to the type of deal Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) has pulled off with its acquisition of NBC Universal, but the mega-merger of AOL (NYSE: AOL) and Time Warner (and does anyone remember how well that worked out?) could be one.
Trefis is one of those organizations that likes to look at these kinds of past details to suggest what the future might hold. In the case of the merged Comcast-NBCU, things are not necessarily as bright as many would have them if the entities continue as one merged mega multimedia company.
As a cable company, the analysts suggest, Comcast is "more highly levered and has a substantially different cash flow profile than NBC." This leads to a management dilemma of how to focus the interaction between the disparate businesses and leads, in turn, to the final question: "Would they be better off if run as two separate companies?"
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