As part of the TWC deal, Charter will complete its proposed takeover of Bright House Networks and merge the three groups into a single entity that will have a total of 23 million customers. This would make it the second-largest cable operator in the US, just behind Comcast with 27 million customers. Charter's offer for TWC is 23 percent higher than what Comcast bid last year for the company.
France-based Altice, which recently bought US cable operator Suddenlink, was also in talks with Time Warner Cable over the holiday weekend. According to the FT's sources, Altice was serious in its pursuit of TWC and had lined up financing from banks including JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Royal Bank of Canada, Nomura and Societe Generale to support a possible bid.
