Bush predicted regulators as a matter of course would make a second request for information, meaning the review would last several months.
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The formal announcement likely will lay out the financial and public interest rationale for the deal, how it will be financed, and who will run Time Warner’s operations.
Telecom giant AT&T reached a deal Saturday to buy Time Warner for $80 billion, absorbing a highly prized media company to complement its nationwide pay-TV business, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported.
That puts the deal’s value at more than $80 billion.
Time Warner controversially merged with AOL back in 2000, a deal that many still view as one of the least successful in corporate history. “AT&T has publicly stated that its “plate is full” integrating the DirecTV asset, leading us to believe another large transaction isn’t in the offing near term”. They aim to own content that they can offer wherever consumers want, whether it’s streamed to mobile phones or broadcast on TV.
AT&T has pursued an aggressive expansion, paying nearly $50 billion to buy satellite television provider DirectTV in 2015.
After its acquisition of satellite television service DirecTV, telephone giant AT&T Inc. might be setting its sights on an even bigger prize, Time Warner Inc.
“What does it get them that they can’t get by licensing Time Warner content and at a much cheaper price than buying the whole company?” The media company has a vast library of movies and television series, such as the Harry Potter films and Game of Thrones, and is among Hollywood’s most prolific producers. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios, Hanna-Barbera, Esporte Interativo, Castle Rock Entertainment and Warner Bros. AT&T would also control the powerful Warner Bros. The former acts as a distributer for quite a lot of the latter’s content through its channels. AT&T’s market capitalization is $238 billion. And the Comcast-NBC merger has proven that a content distribution firm can thrive by owning a media firm as well.
Acquiring Time Warner would also give AT&T a potent answer to Verizon’s plan to buy Yahoo for $4.8 billion – a deal that has been clouded by concerns over a large-scale hack of Yahoo’s database.
So yes, AT&T does need a merger with a media house to stay on track alongside its peers.
With HBO and CNN on one side of the company, and wireless on the other side, AT&T would have more power to shape the future of media.
AT&T has been active, too.
A deal would likely face intense scrutiny by USA antitrust regulators.
And regulators have lately been wary of consolidation causing and competition reducing deals between mega corporations.
Representatives of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
We hope to have more news on the topic come next week.
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With all that, though, it appears that investors are uncertain: Time Warner shares, of course, jumped 10 percent-to $91.29-while AT&T shares slid roughly 2 percent-to $37.96.
