When a No is not a No: Acquisition of Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable [TWC] turned to Comcast as the white knight in 2014 and invited the company to make a friendly acquisition offer after TWC rejected multiple bids from the smaller cable TV company Charter Communications. Comcast obliged, but the merger proposal was rejected by federal authorities due to regulatory issues in 2015. Players in the broadcast and cable TV industry have been attempting mergers and acquisitions during the past few years for diverse reasons, e.g., to consolidate for scale, to access and leverage new technologies, and also importantly, to influence future industry shifts. This case focuses on attempts by Charter and Comcast to acquire TWC. In 2015 after termination of the Comcast-TWC deal, the ball was in Charter’s court, Charter had a few options to choose from: raise its earlier bid, or match Comcast’s bid, or bid lower than Comcast, or maybe, make no bid at all.