AT&T agrees to purchase Time Warner for $85.4 billion in cash, stock deal

It was confirmed on Saturday that AT&T  was successful in its bid to purchase Time Warner for $85.4 billion. This would change the telephone company in to a media giant by giving the parent company of  successful TV channels such HBO and CNN, and film studio Warner Bros. and other coveted media assets.

The joint business would combine the carrier’s a large number of wireless and pay-TV subscribers with Time Warner’s profound media lineup, which incorporates systems, for example, CNN, TNT, the prized HBO channel and Warner Bros. film and TV studio.

In the money and-stock arrangement affirmed by AT&T and Time Warner late Saturday, AT&T will pay $107.50 per share. The arrangement affirmed by the boards of both companies, is set to close before the end of 2017.

Andre Barlow, an antitrust attorney at the law office Doyle, Barlow and Mazard said that the deal would likely face extreme investigation by U.S. antitrust regulators. The government may stress that other cable and internet companies would be denied access to Time Warner content like HBO and CNN. The government may worry that other cable and internet companies would be denied access to Time Warner content like HBO and CNN, said Andre Barlow, an antitrust lawyer at the law firm Doyle, Barlow & Mazard.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has grumbled about what he sees as out of line scope of his campaign, said at a rally on Saturday he would obstruct any AT&T-Time Warner deal in the event that he wins the Nov. 8 election.

A year back, AT&T shocked Wall Street by paying $48.5 billion to purchase satellite TV provider DirecTV, giving it instant access to almost all national markets for offering its pay-tv service and Internet-TV bundles.

AT&T likewise has arrangements to give its own video streaming services to compete with Netflix and Amazon.
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes rejected an $80 billion offer from Twenty-First Century Fox Inc in 2014, but sources said on Friday that the former suitor had no plans to renew its bid.