In May, U.S. cable giants Charter Communications and Cox Communications entered into a definitive agreement to combine their businesses in a “transformative transaction” that will create an industry leader in the U.S. cable sector.
The proposed deal assigns Cox Communications an enterprise value of approximately $34.5 billion.
Charter Communications History
Charter Communications was formed in January 1993 by three former executives of St. Louis-based Cencom Cable Associates, and has since grown into a major fixed broadband services provider and Fortune 500 company.
In February 1994, Charter unveiled its first acquisition, which saw it spend nearly $200 million to obtain ten cable systems in Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama. The systems were acquired from the McDonald Group of Birmingham, Alabama, and served about 100,000 subscriptions in the Southeast.
Over the next five years, the company acquired around 15 regional cable networks, boosting its footprint considerably, and in November 1999, Charter went public after making more than ten major acquisitions in one year.
Less than a decade later, the honeymoon period was over; the company was struggling with the weight of its $21.7 billion debt mountain, prompting Charter to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2009. The bankruptcy plan was approved in November 2009, extinguishing approximately $8 billion worth of debt and allowing Charter to relist on the NASDAQ stock exchange in September 2010.
Liberty Acquires Ownership Interest in Charter
Big changes were on the way. In March 2013, Liberty Media—a company controlled by former Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) CEO John C. Malone, widely known in the industry as the “Cable Cowboy”—agreed to acquire a 27.3% ownership interest in Charter.
The stake, which allowed Liberty to become the company's largest single shareholder, was assembled largely through the purchase of shares held by investment funds such as Apollo Management, Oaktree Capital Management, and Crestview Partners, who inherited their respective stakes via Charter's 2009 post-bankruptcy restructuring.
The current iteration of Charter was created in 2015, when the company, at that time still a mid-ranking player, agreed to stage an audacious dual takeover of cable operators Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Bright House Networks. The deals were valued at $78.7 billion and $10.4 billion, respectively.
The newly enlarged company went on to seize second place in the fixed broadband market.
Cox Communications History
The Cox family, owners of Cox Communications, claim to be the “longest continuous operator in the industry,” with the family having acquired its first cable television franchise in 1962. The company’s history stretches back further: Cox Communications is actually the largest division of Cox Enterprises, a family-owned business founded back in 1898 by Governor James M. Cox.
Today, its HFC cable networks are understood to pass 12 million homes in 670 service areas across 19 states, and the company—which is privately owned and under no obligation to make its operational data—is believed to preside over a subscription base of more than 6 million.
The Altice USA Alternative
Cox wasn’t necessarily Charter’s first choice for an acquisition, however. In February 2024, Bloomberg reported that Charter was mulling a takeover of Altice USA, which is saddled with a debt pile of around $25 billion, and has been evaluating an asset sale since 2022.
Altice USA was formed in June 2016, following the completion of Altice Group’s $17.7 billion acquisition of Cablevision Systems (trading as Optimum). Altice had previously acquired Suddenlink for $9.1 billion in December 2015.
With Charter baulking at Altice’s enormous debt pile, the hunt was on for another target, and 84-year-old billionaire Malone turned his attention to the privately held cableco that had topped his dream list of acquisitions for the decade since he acquired Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks: Cox Communications.
Malone’s fresh plan was reportedly developed in November 2024, following Donald Trump’s re-election as U.S. president. With Trump back in the White House, Charter believed it would have an easier time getting a mega-merger approved by government regulators.
By contrast, senior executives reckoned that a transaction of this scale was far less likely to be approved by Joe Biden’s antitrust officials.
Bloomberg has described the attempts by Charter CEO Chris Winfrey to woo his opposite number—Cox Enterprises Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alex Taylor, the great grandson of the company’s founder —as a “whirlwind courtship,” with the deal painstakingly pieced together in a flurry of behind-the-scenes activity between February and May 2025.
The Cox Charter Transaction
As per the transaction, Cox Communications has an enterprise value of approximately $34.5 billion.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cox Enterprises will receive: $4 billion in cash; a $6 billion notional amount of convertible preferred units; and approximately 33.6 million common units with an implied value of $11.9 billion, which are exchangeable for Charter common shares. Additionally, the combined entity will assume Cox’s approximately $12 billion in outstanding debt.
At closing, Cox Enterprises will own approximately 23% of the combined entity’s fully diluted shares outstanding, on an as-converted, as-exchanged basis. Advance/Newhouse, which acquired a roughly 13% stake in Charter in 2016, following the latter’s takeover of its Bright House Networks subsidiary, will retain a minor stake in the enlarged entity and two board members.
The Future of Cox Communications
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory and Charter shareholder approvals. All things being well, within a year of the transaction closing, the combined company will change its name to Cox Communications, while Charter’s Spectrum brand will become the consumer-facing brand within the communities Cox serves.
The business will remain headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, but will retain a significant presence on Cox’s Atlanta, Georgia campus.
Charter’s double-deal for Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks back in 2015, elevated the cableco to the top table, even if it failed to dislodge long-term broadband market leader Comcast.
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