Cablevision to Bid $16.5 Bln for Adelphia : A Voom blurb

[joep]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050405/bs_nm/media_adelphia_cablevision_dc_2

Cablevision to Bid $16.5 Bln for Adelphia

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - New York area cable operator Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE:CVC - news) plans to make a $16.5 billion all-cash bid for Adelphia Communications Corp. (Other OTC:ADELQ - news), a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Cablevision had been expected to bid with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Providence Equity Partners, but the source said Cablevision now planned to bid by itself.


Cablevision has more than 3 million customers in the New York area. Its bid would be the primary rival to an $18 billion joint offer from Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news) and Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq:CMCSA - news), widely seen as the likely winners of the auction.


The potential offer, which would create a large national operator, comes as Cablevision Chairman Charles Dolan seeks financing to buy the rest of the company's satellite television assets. Controversy over that business, Voom, has plagued the company in recent weeks.


Shares in Cablevision closed off 19 cents at $27.83 on the New York Stock Exchange and were down a further 13 cents in after-hours trade on Inet.

 

[gutter]

16.5 B in cash? This is all too much to absorbe with the VOOM story. Adelphia services my area. Wow what a circle of confusion.

 

[vurbano]

Amazing. it is too much to fathom with all of the rest of the Voom drama.

 

[Lobstah]

Eat or be eaten.

Lob

 

[MarcelV]

Anyone know how much subscribers Adelphia has? I am wondering what the 'per subscriber' rate is? 16.5B seems a little steep.... But what do I know....

 

[riffjim4069]

All I can say is, WOW!

 

[subdude212]

Anyone know how much subscribers Adelphia has? I am wondering what the 'per subscriber' rate is? 16.5B seems a little steep.... But what do I know....

No idea but just the interst on 16.5B could have kept Voom running for years. Adelphia is the only cable operator in my area, somehow Charles Dolan is going to keep getting my money.

 

[will0471]

Roughly 4.5 to 5 million subscribers across 550-600 or so (roughly) cable systems. Roughly $3,200 per sub? I might not be doing the math on that right.. soooo many zeros on the old calculator!

 

[David Dietzel]

$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.

No matter how many times I look at the number, it's hard to image the size of the pile of cash 16 billion one-dollar bills would make.

At 5% interest, that pile would generate $825 million annually -- which would likely have kept VOOM afloat each year as necessary until break even was reached.

And, incredibly, all spent on terrestrial delivery of content. It's like Clear Channel a couple of years ago buying up radio stations all over the country at inflated prices and then seeing those station's value and ratings plummet, requiring a $4.5 billion write-down (loss) as markets realized the potential of satellite radio.

Fascinating.

Traditional terrestrial content delivery methods will survive (as does OTA television today), but the fact that many consumers prefer other more contemporary methods of delivery cannot be ignored.

 

[James Long]

The 10K on their website is for the year ending 12/31/03.

Adelphia Communications Corporation (OTC: ADELQ) is the fifth-largest cable television company in the country. It serves customers in 31 states and Puerto Rico, and offers analog and digital video services, high-speed Internet access and other advanced services over Adelphia’s broadband networks.

As of December 31, 2003, our consolidated cable operations served approximately 5,085,000 basic cable subscribers, of which approximately 1,802,000 also received digital cable service. Our consolidated cable systems also provided high-speed Internet ("HSI") services to approximately 954,000 subscribers as of December 31, 2003. With the exception of 47,000 basic cable subscribers that were located in Brazil, all of our consolidated basic cable subscribers as of December 31, 2003 were located in the United States. Our domestic consolidated cable operations are located in 31 states, with large clusters in Los Angeles, New England, Western New York, West Palm Beach, Cleveland, Western Pennsylvania, Northern Virginia and Colorado Springs.​

JL

 

[Peter Parker]

$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.

No matter how many times I look at the number, it's hard to image the size of the pile of cash 16 billion one-dollar bills would make.

At 5% interest, that pile would generate $825 million annually -- which would likely have kept VOOM afloat each year as necessary until break even was reached.



Fascinating.




maybe they think that this investment will pay off----and that VOOM will not.

 

[CDH]

maybe they think that this investment will pay off----and that VOOM will not.

Maybe they can have their cake (Voom) and eat it too (Adelphia)?

But one wonders what the future brings for cable operators as companies like Verizon start pushing widespread fiber-to-the-door with the idea of bringing HD-on-demand-over-ip. I believe that Cablevision overlaps a lot of Verizon territory, at least in the NYC area.

CDH.

 

[negreenfield]

hiking up price for Comcast...

 

[riffjim4069]

$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.
$16.5 biillion in cash.

No matter how many times I look at the number, it's hard to image the size of the pile of cash 16 billion one-dollar bills would make.

Here is a quote on how high a stack of $100 bills are in 20 billion dollars.

"Here again we start with 200,000,000 one hundred dollar bills. (I always like starting with 200,000,000 one hundred dollar bills - - - don't you?) Let's assume that it takes 2000 one hundred dollar bills to measure a stack of bills one foot tall. That gives us 100,000 feet of one hundred dollar bills. Divide this by 5280 to arrive at the number of miles of $100 bills. (18.9). Now divide 18.9 miles into five equal piles. Doing the math gives me five equal piles of $100 bills, with each pile stacked 3.78 miles high."

Therefore a 16.5B dollar stack of $100 bills would be 15.5925 miles high. Personally, I would happily settle for a single mile.

P.S. Cablevision + Adelphia = Bankruptcy IMO

 

[warper]

I would settlefor atenth of a mile

 

[Vicki]

Call me easy...but just a couple of dozen of the bills...would make my life a lot easier... Vicki

 

[Voom4Me]

That’s a lot of ducks...

Therefore a 16.5B dollar stack of $100 bills would be 15.5925 miles high. Personally, I would happily settle for a single mile.

And if we extend that even further, and multiply 15.5925 miles by 100 to get the original request of one-dollar bills, that would give us 1,559.25 miles, roughly the distance from New York City to Dallas. :yikes

 

[Voom4Me]

That’s a lot of ducks...

And if we extend that even further, and multiply 15.5925 miles by 100 to get the original request of one-dollar bills, that would give us 1,559.25 miles, roughly the distance from New York City to Dallas. :yikes

 

[salsadancer7]

Charles Dolan is spearheading the bid for Adelphia...???!!!

From the article from the N.Y. Times....

"The company chairman, Charles F. Dolan, who had stepped back from running the cable operations, is spearheading the Adelphia bidding, the executives said. Although he has differed with his son, James L. Dolan, Cablevision's chief executive, who has opposed efforts to have Cablevision continue financing the satellite TV business Voom, the two men are said to be in agreement over the bidding procedures."


...all I can say is WOW!!

 

[Tvlman]

How could buying another cable company possibly help the VOOM situation?