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May 04, 2007

Wrapping Up A Busy Week

I covered eight media earnings calls this week in addition to closing the books on the month of April and getting fresh updates on Northlake's Market Cap and Style models. Total words written, including this post, are 10,006. I really don’t have much more to say so here are a few tidbits from one very tired money manager:

• Time Warner Cable (TWC) would clearly pay more for Cablevision (CVC) than the Dolan's latest offer that has been accepted by the Board. Unfortunately for CVC's minority shareholders the Dolan's aren’t willing to sell to TWC or anyone else. Knowing that a higher but unattainable is out there will a majority of the minority shareholders voted down the deal? The Clear Channel (CCU) saga suggests using the shareholder vote to extract added value can work. Then again, the Dolan's already control CVC whereas private equity doesn’t own CCU. I'd be surprised if this deal isn’t approved but with downside limited I'd stay long CVC for a few more weeks to see how it plays out.

• Speaking of CCU, do you think private equity firms need to draw a line in the sand regarding shareholder vote blackmail? If CCU shareholders vote no and then private equity goes even higher, isn’t that setting a bad precedent? The outcome of the CVC is sort of similar.

• Finally, I'd like to point you to my CVC earnings call coverage. I went light on the earnings analysis since it has no relevance to CVC's stock price. However, I laid out some insights on how CVC's results impact the debate over cable stocks. It is worth a read if you care about cable.

Posted by Steve Birenberg at May 4, 2007 09:54 AM in Media