by Brian Santo – CED Magazine
Comcast remains confident its takeover of Time Warner Cable will be approved, so much so that teams from both companies are still working full-steam-ahead on integration. If the deal fails to get approval, Charter is ready to step back in.
Executives from both companies spoke at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference yesterday.
Even as public opposition grows to Comcast’s takeover of Time Warner Cable, and analysts keep reducing the odds the deal will be pulled off, Comcast CFO and vice chairman Michael Angelakis remained sanguine about the deal. He said Comcast is increasingly confident in its estimates that the combination could result in $1.5 billion in opex savings and $400 million in capex savings.
Liberty Media president and CEO Greg Maffei characterized the market as still “frothy” for deals. More consolidation is definitely possible, and if the Comcast-TWC deal falls through, Charter (in which Liberty Media holds a significant minority stake) is in a better financial position for a takeover than it was when it launched its initial bid for TWC