Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, June 15, 2018

Article Excerpt

AT&T INC., $33.15, New York symbol T, has completed its acquisition of media company Time Warner Inc. (New York symbol TWX) after a court rejected the U.S. government’s attempt to block the deal. In October 2016, the company agreed to buy Time Warner for $81.0 billion in cash (50%) and shares (50%). If you include Time Warner’s debt, the total value of the takeover was roughly $103 billion. To put that amount in context, AT&T’s current market cap (the total value of all outstanding shares) is $242.0 billion. AT&T plans to use Time Warner content to attract more users to its wireless and TV services. However, the U.S. government felt the deal would let AT&T (which also owns the DirecTV satellite TV system) unfairly increase the prices that rival TV networks pay to access Time Warner programming. That includes cable channels HBO and TBS, and the Warner Brothers movie library. The government can still appeal the ruling. If successful, it could impose new…