Charter Communications agreed a deal to buy cable rival Cox Communications, creating a mobile and broadband powerhouse that ramps up competition with US mobile operators and streaming giants.
In a press release, Charter stated an enterprise value of $34.5 billion comprises of $21.9 billion of equity and $12.6 billion in debt.
Privately held and family run Cox Enterprises, which owns the communications group, will own around 23 per cent of the merged entity and the Cox family will have seats on the board.
Its CEO Alex Taylor will be chairman of the new entity. Within a year of closing, the combined company will change its name to Cox Communications.
The deal is one of the biggest in the sector so far in 2025, and comes as US media companies look at ways for their cable offerings to compete better with streaming players such as Netflix.
Through the deal, Charter will also no doubt look to boost its bundled broadband and mobile services, as it looks to keep pace with rivals in the sector like T-Mobile US and AT&T. The company notably continued to rack up mobile subscriber gains in Q1 through MVNO agreements, along with fellow cable player Comcast.
Charter and Cox explored a merger in 2023, but the talks did not to amount to anything. Charter has also agreed to buy Liberty Broadband, and it added it expects the deal with Cox to conclude at around the same time without specifying a date.