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U S West to sell cable unit?
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May 23, 1997: 12:47 p.m. ET
U S West may sell Twin Cities cable system to Charter for $600 million
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) -- U S West Inc., in a bid to shed some of its cable systems, is reportedly close to an agreement to sell its Minneapolis-St. Paul cable operations to Charter Communications for $600 million.
U S West acquired the systems as part of last year's $10 billion buyout of Continental Cablevision Inc., now known as MediaOne, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
However, since U S West Media Group, the company's publicly traded cable and wireless unit, has telephone interests in Minnesota, it must sell off its cable operations in that state.
Federal regulations prohibit companies from owning cable and telephone operations in the same markets. U S West must reach a deal to sell the cable operations in Minnesota by August 15 under an agreement reached with the Federal Communications Commission.
Specific terms of the deal were not clear, the Journal said, but people familiar with the matters explained the price is about 10.5 times the systems' cash flow.
Officials at U S West's Englewood, Colo. headquarters would not comment on speculation about the deal.
In addition to freeing it from its regulatory obligations, the sale could help U S West pay down its estimated debt of $10 billion, the Journal said. It could also be used in the upgrading of the company's phone and cable operations.
The deal would be the latest leap in the St. Louis-based Charter's ascent from its startup with no customers to the one million subscribers it has today. Adding the Twin Cities systems would bring 280,000 subscribers, or roughly half of that market. 
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U S West Media Group
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