The share price of American telecommunications firm Altice U.S. rose more than 35 percent on Monday following a report that rival cable and broadband company Charter Communications may consider a takeover bid.
The report, published by Bloomberg, said Charter recently engaged with financial advisors to explore a possible acquisition of Altice, causing the latter’s stock price to jump more than 50 percent in afternoon trading.
Altice ended the day at $2.49 per share, or 36 percent higher than its opening price of $1.82 per share.
Spun out as a separate company from its European counterpart in 2018, Altice primarily operates the Cablevision and Suddelink cable and broadband brands. Like other cable providers, over the past few years, Altice has shifted its core focus away from traditional pay television in favor of its broadband Internet and wireless services.
Charter is one of the largest cable television and broadband providers in the United States, after successfully acquiring Time Warner Cable in May 2016. It, too, primarily focuses on marketing its Spectrum Internet and Spectrum Wireless products to customers, though it continues to build out various products for Spectrum TV, targeting subscribers who want a fully-managed, bundled experience from a single provider.
On Monday, Reuters said Altice has a market cap of around $1 billion and a debt load of $25 billion, the latter of which Charter would need to fully pay if it wanted to acquire the company absent a debt restructuring plan.
Any potential acquisition would be subject to the approval of the boards of each company, as well as various regulatory agencies.
