Updated, 9:14 p.m. | For months, a scrappy cable upstart thought it hadTime Warner Cable on the run.
With backing from a onetime king of cable, John C. Malone, the company,Charter Communications, pushed for a merger that would create a more formidable rival to the industry’s current leader, Comcast.
But the bids kept coming in “a day late and a dollar short,” according to a person involved in the negotiations. Charter’s offers, made privately, were only slightly higher than Time Warner Cable’s share price at the time.
“We didn’t know why they didn’t do a kill shot,” the person said. Charter also strained relations by talking down Time Warner Cable’s leaders even as it tried to woo them.
So when Robert D. Marcus took over as chief executive of Time Warner Cable on New Year’s Day, he sought to turn the tables.
This account of what led to Thursday’s announcement of Comcast’s $45 billion deal for Time Warner Cable is based on interviews with several people who were involved in the negotiations, who spoke on the condition they not be named.
In early January, Mr. Marcus, a former merger lawyer, quietly contacted Comcast’s chief executive, Brian L. Roberts, and suggested that the companies discuss a deal, restarting talks that had begun last year.
Yet after a few weeks of meetings, Mr. Roberts was not sold on the idea. He was also weighing an alliance with Charter, in the hope of picking up a few choice markets should it succeed in acquiring Time Warner Cable. But Comcast and Charter could not agree on how to structure a joint hostile bid.
By late January, it looked as if Comcast might not be party to any deal at all.
After Comcast reported earnings on Jan. 28, Mr. Roberts went on a roadshow to meet with his large shareholders. What he heard took him by surprise. Many of his biggest investors wanted Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable, and urged him to take on another huge deal — not a year after having completed the acquisition of the content powerhouse NBCUniversal.
Mr. Roberts returned from those meetings emboldened, and shortly before he boarded a plane to Sochi, Russia, where NBC is broadcasting the Winter Olympics, he called Mr. Marcus with a message: The deal was on.
via:http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/time-warner-cable-and-comcast-strike-45-2-billion-deal/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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