Tiger Cub Stephen Mandel Boosts His Stake In Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR) to 5.7%

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Now the question is whether the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice will be clearing the deal. It is worth mentioning that the aforementioned deal comes after Comcast walked away from its planned $45.2 billion merger with Time Warner Cable as a result of serious opposition from regulators (there were concerns that the size of the new company would be anti-competitive). However, the Charter-Time Warner Cable deal is expected to withstand regulatory review, as the combined cable company will still be smaller than Comcast. Even more to that, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), which was an insistent opponent of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger, now supports Charter in its acquisition proposal for Time Warner Cable. Thus, it is highly likely that the deal will get the approval of the FCC and the Department of Justice, and will be finalized by the end of the current year.

Let’s take a quick look at Charter’s recent financial performance in order to assess how the company has been doing so far this year. The fourth-largest cable operator reported revenues of $2.4 billion for the first quarter of 2015, which yields a growth of 7.3% year-over-year, primarily driven by residential revenue growth and commercial revenue growth. Precisely, the residential revenue growth reached 6.7%, while the commercial revenue growth was at 14.8%. At the same time, the company’s residential customer relationships increased by 86,000 during the quarter, compared to 112,000 during the same quarter a year ago. Meanwhile, Charter Communications delivered a net loss of $81 million in the first quarter of this year, compared to $37 million reported in the first quarter of 2014. Within our database, John H. Scully’s SPO Advisory Corp and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway represent the largest shareholders in Charter Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR), holding 6.47 million and 5.98 million shares, respectively as of March 31.

Disclosure: None

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