|
WOW Poised for Big Ameritech Buy
By Joe Estrella & Linda Haugsted
Multichannel News
5/11/2001 6:00:00 PM
WideOpenWest LLC plans to transform itself from a Western start-up to a major Midwest MSO by purchasing cable properties from SBC Communications Inc.’s Ameritech New Media in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.
Talks between the two parties have proceeded to a point at which an announcement is
'imminent' and could come as soon as Monday (May 14), sources close to the deal told
Multichannel News.
'There are still some issues out there, but they’re getting close,' said an industry insider
familiar with the negotiations. The source would not specify what those issues were.
The deal would give WOW access to ANM’s cable customers and systems passing an
estimated 1.5 million households. The company's last release on the subject -- shortly after SBC closed its purchase of Ameritech Corp. in October 1999 -- stated that ANM had 113 cable franchises.
Financial terms could not be determined, but cable analysts said they assumed the sale price would be well below the $4,000 to $5,000 per subscriber that many well-built cable systems have recently commanded. That would put the price below $1.2 billion.
SBC has been trying to sell the ANM systems for about two years.
'They must have gotten a great deal, I’m sure of that,' Paul Kagan Associates Inc. cable
analyst John Mansell said.
Executives at both SBC and WOW declined to comment on the rumored sale.
WOW’s equity backers are Boston-based ABRY Partners Inc., a private-equity investment fund, and Oak Hill Capital Partners L.P., a Fort Worth, Texas-based fund formed by Robert M. Bass.
The two parties put up $50 million in 1999 to get the overbuilder off the ground.
|
