The telecommunications giant agreed on Saturday to buy Time Warner, the home of HBO and CNN, for about $85.4 billion, creating a new colossus capable of both producing content and distributing it to millions with wireless phones, broadband subscriptions and satellite TV connections. The proposed deal is likely to spur yet more consolidation among media companies, which have already looked to partners to get bigger. This year, Lionsgate struck a deal to buy the pay-TV channel Starz for $4.4 billion. And the Redstone family, which controls both CBS and Viacom, has urged the corporate siblings, which split 10 years ago, to consider reuniting. AT&T and Time Warner said both of their boards unanimously approved the deal. “When Jeff and I started talking, it became clear to us very quickly that we shared a very similar vision,” Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, told reporters on a conference call on Saturday, referring to Jeffrey Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive. “Time Warner, we believe, is the clear leader in premium content.” Continue reading the main story Most analysts and investors have noted that Time Warner was part of one of the biggest merger follies of all time, when it sold itself to AOL at the height of the dot-com boom. That combination — also pitched on the idea of uniting content and the internet — proved unwieldy and was later stripped apart to a few core businesses.
Trump, in his "Gettysburg Address" yesterday said he would put the kibosh on this one..... sooo.... I guess TWX would be a good short play in the event of a Brexit style upset. I have no idea why Trump would say this,.... but I have no idea why he says anything he says.
Trump's an idiot who just says populistic things... there's no way he can block this. No reason for it. There's no monopoly fear behind it, since both are different companies....
15% spread is normal... especially if it takes well into 2nd half 2017... don't want to lock up into that. I've been burned before on takeover spreads that fell through...
A lock would trade 6percent annualized in the current market. I think it takes over a year and may bust.
They might wait and see what happens with elections... maybe they want to pull out when Trump gets in because of economic/market conditions... How far are negotiations? Did they sign anything yet re payment if they pull out etc.?