Time Warner Cable Now Public
Turn up the volume—the quiet period is over! Time Warner Cable becomes a public company today as a result of Adelphia’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy exit plan going into effect. (Read the release). Its Class A common stock (ticker: TWC) is expected to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange as early as March 1. The company also withdrew the registration statement on Form S-1 it had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The move was triggered when Adelphia announced yesterday that distributions under its plan of reorganization to holders of notes claims and equity interests would start today. Adelphia shareholders will receive most of the shares in Time Warner Cable that Adelphia acquired in return for selling its assets to Time Warner and Comcast in a $17 billion deal last July.
“Becoming a public company is the latest step in creating a Time Warner Cable with greater scale, improved subscriber clusters, stronger growth opportunities and enhanced strategic flexibility," said Time Warner Cable President and CEO Glenn Britt in a statement. "Our aggressive integration efforts of the newly acquired systems are ongoing, and we’re making progress toward preparing these systems to offer Time Warner Cable’s advanced services."
Separately, Time Warner Inc. sold the Atlanta Braves for $450 million to Liberty Media Corp. yesterday according to AP and The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) Pending approval by MLB, Time Warner will transfer the Braves, a group of Time Inc.-owned craft magazines and $1 billion in cash to John Malone’s Liberty Media in exchange for about 60 million Time Warner shares.