M&A

So many mergers this year.

• Charter has swallowed both TWC and Bright House Networks to become third largest MSO (after AT&T and Comcast).
• Ma Bell swallowed DirecTV – and is now launching OTT cable service with zero rating on its cell service. Now AT+T wants to buy TimeWarner for $109B with debt included. TW owns movies and TV, but not Time, Inc. The magazine division was spun out.
• Zayo bought Allstream to go big in Canada; then bought ELI for $1.42B to fill in the Western US.
• Birch bought Primus to enter Canada as well.
• CenturyLink wants to get big in Enterprise, so they are buying Level3. The combined carrier will get 76% of its revenue from the enterprise and wholesale market.
• Windstream is buying EarthLink.
• Verizon got the OK to buy XO. Verizon bought AOL and is trying to buy Yahoo, but those hacks have it looking for a discount.
• IN the Master Agent space: ScanSource and Intelysis. Sandler Partners and X4.
• Ingram Micro bought NETXUSA after it was acquired by HNA in China.
• Microsoft is buying LinkedIn for $26B!
• VTech bought snom.
• Polycom did not get bought by Mitel. They went with a PE firm.
• Avaya is in trouble.
• GTT is buying Hibernia.
• Fairpoint just got scooped up by Consolidated.
• You need a chalk board for data center ownership.