Commisso ups his offer and gets to take Mediacom private

Mediacom founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso can add one more title to his resume: owner. The MSO has agreed to accept Commisso's latest offer of $8.75 a share--significantly more than the $6 a share he proposed and withdrew in May--and acquiesced to a $600 million purchase of all the company stock he didn't already own.

Commisso is really only applying the finishing touches. He already owns 40 percent of the company's equity and 87 percent of its voting stake. Now, sometime in the first half of 2011, he'll own it all and Mediacom will join Cox Communications in the ranks of privately held cable companies.

The MSO's stock closed at $6.86 per share on Friday, so Commisso is paying a bit of a premium but not quite what analysts thought the company might be worth.

"Our various valuation metrics could suggest a mid-teens per share value in a couple years," said David Joyce of Miller Tabak, who, nevertheless, called Commisso's offer a "more palatable premium to recent trading prices."

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Commisso withdraws bid to buy out stock, take Mediacom private