ATLANTA — Cox Communications and Charter Communications announced on Friday that they have agreed to combine their companies.
If approved by regulators, the deal would see two of the nation’s largest cable companies merging into one.
Cox Communications, which is based in Sandy Springs and owned by Cox Enterprises, is the third-largest cable operator in the nation. Charter, based in Stamford, Connecticut, is the second-largest.
The proposed deal values Cox Communications at $34.5 billion.
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" I think hopefully it will bring them scale in order to better compete nationwide," Klaas Baks, Emory finance professor, said.
The cable and broadband market has faced upheaval in recent years as more companies have gotten into the space.
“I think the last 15 years have been far more changes than we’ve seen in the prior 40 years,” Baks said.
“So now you’re getting kind of a smorgasbord of services, whereas in the early days, you just got cable from your cable company. Now you’re giving cable, phone, mobile phone, internet, and potentially security services. So, you’re getting more and more services,” Marty Puranik, CEO of Atlantic.net, said.
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The combined company, which will be renamed Cox Communications within a year of the deal closing, will be headquartered in Connecticut, but will still have a prominent presence at the Sandy Springs campus.
“So I think the exciting part would be to bring that Cox DNA into a larger company like Charter,” Marty Puranik said.
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Charter CEO Chris Winfrey will remain President and CEO of the combined company, while Cox Enterprises CEO Alex Taylor will join the company’s board as Chairman.
“Our family has always believed that investing for the long-term and staying committed to the best interests of our customers, employees, and communities is the best recipe for success,” Taylor said. “In Charter, we’ve found the right partner at the right time and in the right position to take this commitment to a higher level than ever before, delivering an incredible outcome for our customers, employees, suppliers, and the local communities we serve.”
Cox Enterprises is a minority of Cox Media Group, which owns Channel 2 Action News.
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