Charter, Cox Communications merger valued at $34.5B
1 of 3 | Charter Communications, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States announced a merger Friday with privately-held Cox Communications in a deal valued at $34.5 billion. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo
May 16 (UPI) -- Charter Communications, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States announced a merger Friday with privately-held Cox Communications in a multi-billion-dollar deal.
Once the merger is completed, the new entity will retain the name of Atlanta-based Cox, a subsidiary of parent company Cox Enterprises, a private firm founded in 1898 that also has dealings in the automotive industry. Cox acquired its first cable franchise in 1962.
The deal gives Cox Communications a value of approximately $34.5 billion.
Charter Communications' stock climbed sharply on the Nasdaq Composite at market open Friday before retreating somewhat. The company's shares were up $7.03 or 1.68% at 10:42 a.m. EDT.
Under the terms of the deal, Connecticut-based Charter is acquiring all of Cox's commercial fiber and managed IT and cloud businesses. Cox will also get $4 billion worth of cash and approximately $17.9 billion worth of combined shares, giving the parent company an approximately 23% ownership stake in the new venture.
The new company will remain headquartered in Stamford, Conn., and also assume an existing $12 billion worth of Cox Communications' debt.
Prior to the deal, Charter was the largest cable operator in the United States, reaching over 32 million subscribers in 41 states. It was also the fifth-largest provider of residential phone lines.
Charter's Spectrum brand will survive the merger and will "become the consumer-facing brand within the communities Cox serves."
In 2017, Charter announced a partnership with Comcast Communications to share information about wireless services, a year after its $78.7 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable.
"Cox and Charter have been innovators in connectivity and entertainment services -- with decades of work and hundreds of billions of dollars invested to build, upgrade, and expand our complementary regional networks to provide high-quality internet, video, voice and mobile services," Charter President and CEO Chris Winfrey said in a jointly-issued statement.
"This combination will augment our ability to innovate and provide high-quality, competitively priced products, delivered with outstanding customer service, to millions of homes and businesses. We will continue to deliver high-value products that save American families money, and we'll onshore jobs from overseas to create new, good-paying careers for U.S. employees that come with great benefits, career training and advancement, and retirement and ownership opportunities."
Winfrey will retain both executive titles upon completion of the deal.
"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," Cox Enterprises Chairman and CEO Alex Taylor said in the companies' statement.
"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."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump's trade talk delegation is set to face off with China's negotiators in London. Here is what's at stake.
Top Trump officials are meeting Chinese negotiators in London on Monday. This would be the first official US-China talk since a temporary tariff truce on May 12. International trade experts have said that Trump could be under pressure to strike a deal. Three top Trump administration economic officials will face off against Chinese negotiators in a renewed effort to break the US-China trade deadlock. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will be meeting China's delegation in London on Monday. "The meeting should go very well," President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post announcing the talks. This coming meeting will be the first official talk between the two countries since they mutually lowered tariffs in a temporary truce on May 12, after talks in Geneva. The renewed talks follow a 90-minute phone call between Trump and China's leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, a rare direct conversation that Trump later described as "very good." According to Trump, the two leaders also agreed to visit each other in person, without providing more details in terms of a timeline. The Chinese Embassy of Washington did not respond to a request for who would be attending this negotiation from its side. The team they sent to Geneva consisted of Vice Premier He Lifeng, Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang, and Vice Finance Minister Liao Min. Notably, Li has a Master of Laws from the University of Hamburg in Germany and has been part of China's delegation to the World Trade Organization since 2021. International trade experts previously told Business Insider that much is at stake for both China and the US to strike a deal, or at the very least, continue the truce beyond August 12 when the 90-day tariff pause will expire. "The Trump administration made their job harder because the tariff policies they've implemented are costly to Americans and American companies, and therefore, the market doesn't like it," said Philip Luck, director of the CSIS Economics Program. "They are under a lot of pressure to do things fast." Meanwhile, a lawsuit that threatens to undo all of Trump's tariffs enacted under the IEEPA also looms over negotiations with China. Drew DeLong, lead in geopolitical dynamics practice at Kearney, a global strategy and management consulting firm, told BI that if the court strikes down tariffs before trade deals could come to pass, other routes of imposing tariffs could be more complicated and time-consuming. The White House did not provide Business Insider with any additional comment beyond Trump's Truth Social post. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Utah universities show plans to cut ‘inefficient' programs to boost engineering, AI and nursing
President's Circle on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) The Utah Board of Higher Education approved the reallocation plans submitted by all public universities in the state, one of the first steps delineated by recently approved legislation requiring schools to cut 10% of their budgets for courses. Overall, the plans include layoffs and the elimination of programs with low enrollment and graduation rates in order to receive an eventual boost to budgets for programs related to engineering, artificial intelligence, nursing and behavioral health. That's in line with a legislative audit that advised lawmakers to look into cutting 'inefficient' programs and expanding those with waitlists to keep universities relevant. Also, with a mandate triggered by HB265, a 2025 bill that codified the guidelines for that effort. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX In total, universities have to cut $60 million, which will sit in a 'strategic reinvestment account' until they implement the reallocation plans in three years. While the new law requires institutions to reallocate 30% of the full $60 million, on Friday they presented plans to the board that would surpass that and cut about 50% of the $60 million. 'We're glad to be able to just finally have the opportunity for you, as a board, to see the culmination of what has been exceptionally difficult work on the part of the institutions, and the leadership of the institutions,' Geoffrey Landward, commissioner of higher education, told the board on Friday. 'Faculty and staff and students are all impacted by this work.' However, he described the process as 'exceptionally important,' arguing that it would give higher education institutions the tools to the challenges they will face in the future. With tight deadline, Utah universities scramble to cut 10% of budget for courses Overall, 43.6% of the cuts will come from the instructional budgets, 20% from academic support areas, 2.4% from student services, 31.6% from institutional support, 1.7% from research and 0.6% from public service, data from the Utah System of Higher Education shows. Over 60% will go to other instructional efforts after the three-year process, 20% to an instruction/research category, 8% to academic support, 5.3% to student services, 3.7% to institutional support and 2.4% to research The Friday presentations also offered a glimpse into plans previously kept under wraps — including those from Utah's flagship university. As the largest university in the state, the University of Utah had to cut the most from its budget — $19.5 million. The institution is planning to cut $7.5 million in 2026, $6.2 million more by 2027 and an additional $5.8 million by 2028 to reallocate to engineering, AI, clinical training for nursing students, biotechnology, civic engagement — with an emphasis on American federalism — and behavioral health, University of Utah President Taylor Randall told the board. The U. received a conditional approval, since its leaders asked for additional time to decide how some elements during the second and third year will play out in the school's research space while Congress reviews its spending package. 'We, on a daily basis, are staring at tens of millions of dollars of grants that are moving back and forth,' Randall said. 'Those actually affect staffing decisions and faculty decisions, and so we are just grateful that you've allowed us some time to let some of those things settle down.' Currently the plans are to make cuts in the school's administration and staff, and 484 courses, including 81 in the College of Humanities, 62 in the College of Fine Arts, 62 in the College of Social and Behavioral Science, and 61 in the College of Health. Some of them come from not revising the list too often, Randall said. 'Over time, you don't clean things up, and that's clearly what we did. This tells you, by college, the courses that had been fallow for a little bit too long or had very, very low enrollment.' Some others overlapped too much with other courses that were already filling market needs. Meanwhile, other schools showed different areas in which they intend to innovate in the process. Utah State University, for example, is allocating a good chunk of the funds retained from staff and course cuts for what their leaders call 'technologies and careers for the future.' That includes a new school of computing, a new chemical engineering program, an AI Center for Excellence, and an expansion of its aviation program, along with new schools for design, construction and manufacturing, and technical education. Southern Utah University is planning on a big push to place students in internships, while eliminating programs on languages, arts, ethnic studies, women and gender studies, and construction technology, among others. Salt Lake Community College is eliminating or streamlining programs due to low enrollment and completion rates in the Provost's Office, in the School of Arts, Communication and Digital Media, in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and in its business school, among others. But the college is also pursuing expanding its hospitality and film programs, which are in high demand. Snow College is proposing to expand its prison education programs, as well as other courses on automation technology, respiratory therapy, and strategic communications and public relations. But, at the same time, it is eliminating programs on languages and media studies, alongside The Snowdrift, its campus newspaper, and the school's radio and television stations. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Joann, Rite Aid, JCPenney, and other store closings contribute to a 274% surge in retail layoffs in 2025
Layoff announcements from U.S. employers have increased 80%, to 696,309 job cuts, through May of this year. That's in comparison with the 385,859 cuts announced throughout the first five months of 2024, according to the latest layoffs report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based executive outplacement firm. Why you're catching the 'ick' so easily, according to science Uber's new senior mode aims to remove barriers for aging riders Why AI Is Making 1:1 Meetings Irrelevant Federal government agencies have been most impacted by planned job cuts in 2025, with 284,827 job reductions year to date, compared with 36,325 U.S. government job cuts announced during the same period last year. Retail is the second-leading industry in job cuts this year, with 75,802 cuts since the start of 2025. That's a 274% increase in retail job reductions compared with the same period last year, when U.S. companies announced 20,276 layoffs. According to the report, DOGE-related efforts remain the leading reason given for job cut announcements this year. This includes reductions in federal employee and contractor roles, and private nonprofit layoffs resulting from federal funding cuts. Market and economic conditions were the second-most cited explanation for announced U.S. layoffs, followed by store closings. In a news release discussing the layoff report, Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said: 'Tariffs, funding cuts, consumer spending, and overall economic pessimism are putting intense pressure on companies' workforces. Companies are spending less, slowing hiring, and sending layoff notices.' Store closings being among the top reasons cited for U.S. retail layoffs is unsurprising. Fast Company has written extensively about retail store closings throughout the U.S., from companies like Kohl's, Macy's, and JCPenney. While some retailers have chosen to shutter the doors of some locations, others have filed for bankruptcy protection and announced company-wide store closures. In January 2025, Joann filed for bankruptcy for a second time. The fabric and crafts store previously filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2024. Similarly, Rite Aid publicized its decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 5. The retail pharmacy first filed for bankruptcy in October 2023. As for hiring efforts, U.S. companies have announced 79,741 planned hires through May of this year, an increase of 57% from the same period last year. However, planned hiring announcements remain historically low compared with pre-pandemic and early-pandemic years. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter: Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
