GNET >>> Paul Allen's Cable company will now be the 4th largest
Thursday May 27, 6:07 pm Eastern Time
Paul Allen Buying Another Cable Co.
By SETH SUTEL
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Striking his second cable TV deal in two days and fourth in a week, Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) co-founder Paul Allen said today he's buying Denver-based Fanch Communications.
No price was disclosed for privately held Fanch, which will put Allen's Charter Communications squarely in the No. 4 spot in the U.S. cable industry, behind AT&T (NYSE:T - news), Time Warner and Comcast (Nasdaq:CMCSK - news).
Fanch has about 547,000 subscribers, boosting Charter's base of subscribers to about 5.5 million.
Like AT&T, which in less than a year has agreed to buy two of nation's the four biggest cable companies, Allen is hoping to use cable TV wires as pipelines for super-fast Internet access, phone service, and digital television.
The Fanch deal comes a day after Charter said it was buying Falcon Communications of Los Angeles for $3.6 billion and just a week after Charter said it was buying two smaller cable operators.
Those deals are part of cable spending spree that began a year ago with Allen's $2.8 billion purchase of Marcus Cable, then the nation's largest privately held cable operator.
Then, in July, he paid $4.5 billion for Charter, which is now the umbrella company for his cable properties.
In all, St. Louis-based Charter has purchased a dozen cable companies over the past year, spending almost $13 billion, excluding the amount paid for Fanch.
Terms of the Fanch purchase weren't released, but based on the price of $3,600 per subscriber Charter paid for Falcon, the Fanch acquisition would cost Charter at least $1.9 billion.
Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, is the third wealthiest American, thanks mainly to his Microsoft shares. Forbes Magazine has estimated his personal wealth at $22 billion.
Allen also has been amassing a portfolio of high-tech and entertainment companies under his holding company, Vulcan Ventures, in hopes of providing high-speed interactive services.
Vulcan's other holdings include an Internet portal site called Go2Net, which offers personal finance and commerce features, and High Speed Access Corp., a provider of Internet access over cable TV lines.
Allen also owns two professional sports teams -- the Seattle Seahawks of football and the Portland Trail Blazers of basketball -- which could save Charter money by eliminating the licensing fees that programmers usually pay to sports franchises.
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Above news is good as it will help GNET in my opinion.
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