Time Warner pays $3bn for Insight
August 15, 2011
Time Warner Cable has agreed to pay $3 billion in cash for Insight Communications.
The transaction, subject to approvals, will strengthen Time Warner Cable’s presence in the east of USA presence, adding more than 750,000 subscribers in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Insight is owned by The Carlyle Group, Crestview Partners, MidOcean Partners, members of Insight management and others. Carlyle and Insight management took the company private in December 2005, and Crestview and MidOcean purchased a significant stake in the company in April 2010.
The transaction follows months of negotiating for Insight and an auction process that drew bids from WideOpen West and Mediacom Communications, both of which dropped out of the process earlier this month. The other final round auction contender, Cablevision Systems, evidently didn’t make a bid.
Time Warner Cable was never part of the auction process, but given its clout and the contiguity of systems in the area was always considered to be a likely buyer of Insight.