Graham Holdings announced that it will spin off Cable One as an independently traded company in 2015.
Share prices rose nearly 13 percent following the announcement for the investment conglomerate, which was known as the Washington Post Company until it sold the eponymous newspaper to Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos in August 2013.
"The separation will position Graham Holdings to pursue continued growth opportunities, while enabling Cable One to focus entirely on its video, Internet and voice services and to attract a more natural stockholder base," said Donald E. Graham, chairman of the board for Graham Holdings.
Based in Phoenix, Ariz., Cable One ended the third quarter with 476,233 pay-TV subscribers and 694,236 customers overall, including broadband and telephone users. The operator is best known for its decision in April to stop carrying Viacom channels.
"Cable One is a smaller, rural-focused cable operator that has recently struggled with programming costs and may benefit from an increase in scale," wrote Nomura Securities analyst Adam Ilkowitz.
The analyst pegs the enterprise value of Cable One at between $2 billion to $2.5 billion.
For more:
- read this Graham Holdings press release
- read this CED Magazine story
- read this Deadline Hollywood story
- read this Multichannel News story
Related links:
Cable One loses another 14K subs in post-Viacom era, but says it's OK with that
Cable One deal with WDAY puts CW back on in Fargo
Cable One tacks on $2.94 sports surcharge