Altice USA has offered to buy Canadian cable major Cogeco in a C$10.3 billion or $7.88 billion deal, aiming to strengthen its US business.
Altice also agreed to sell Canadian cable business of Cogeco to Rogers Communications, the largest shareholder of Cogeco.
The New York-based company said it would pay about C$4.8 billion or $3.67 billion for Cogeco’s U.S. assets, namely Atlantic Broadband, the country’s ninth largest cable operator.
Cogeco first entered the U.S. market in 2012 when it bought Atlantic Broadband for $1.36 billion, aiming to find growth outside of Canada.
Atlantic Broadband is currently the 9th largest cable operator in the U.S, providing residential and business customers with broadband, video and telephony services in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.
As part of Altice USA, Atlantic Broadband would benefit from enhanced scale, operating efficiencies and further investment support that are at the core of the Altice business model and strategy, Dexter Goei, chief executive officer of Altice USA, said.
This offer is in line with Altice USA’s previously stated objective to opportunistically grow through value-accretive acquisitions. The acquisition of Atlantic Broadband would allow Altice USA to expand its operations across 11 states on the east coast of the United States, adjacent to its existing Optimum and Suddenlink footprints.
It would also represent the fourth acquisition by Altice in the cable sector in the U.S. market following the acquisitions and integrations of Cequel (Suddenlink) in December 2015, Cablevision Systems (Optimum) in June 2016, and most recently, Service Electric Cable T.V. of New Jersey in July 2020.
Recently, Altice USA agreed to sell 49.99 percent of its Lightpath fiber enterprise business to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP) for an implied enterprise value of $3.2 billion. Altice USA will retain 50.01 percent stake in Lightpath.
