Paul Allen may buy all of Charter

The co-founder of Microsoft and majority owner of the debt-laden cable company also considers a merger.


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Charter Communications chairman and controlling shareholder Paul Allen said he's considering buying the remaining outstanding stock in the troubled cable company, according to a report Wednesday.

Allen, a Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) co-founder, also said he is considering recapitalization and restructuring for the St. Louis-based company, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Charter (Charts, Fortune 500) lost $360 million in the latest quarter and had $19.6 billion in debt, the Journal said.

The company has a market capitalization of just over $1 billion.

Allen, who holds a 52 percent stake in the company and controls 92 percent of its voting power, said he may also consider asset sales, a merger or other transaction, the Journal said.

The company fell behind its competitors in the 1990s due to a heavy debt load, but has held on to subscribers and grown revenue in the last few years, the article said.  Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.