Charter bids $60bn for Time Warner Cable
Time Warner's cable TV arm has been performing well US cable TV operator Charter Communications has said it is offering more than $60bn (£37bn) to buy Time Warner Cable, its larger rival.
Charter said it was offering $132.50 a share, with $83 of that in cash and the rest in its own stock.
It added that it was going public with the offer because of a lack of interest from Time Warner's management in its efforts to purchase the firm.
However, Time Warner said the offer price was "grossly inadequate".
"Charter has chosen to go public with its third low-ball offer, trying to pressure Time Warner Cable's board into selling the company at a grossly inadequate price," Rob Marcus, Time Warner Cable's chief executive, was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.
'Unrealistic price expectations'Charter said it had made previous offers to buy Time Warner over the past six months, but had been rebuffed.
"They came back to us with a design to be dismissive," Tom Rutledge, chief executive of Charter, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
"They have not engaged with us. All of the conversations have been one-way," he added.
On Monday, Mr Rutledge released a letter he had sent to Mr Marcus, in which he accused Time Warner of having "an unrealistic price expectation".
If the deal were to go ahead, the combined firm would have more than 15 million customers in the US.
The takeover would be the biggest in the sector since 2002, when Comcast acquired AT&T's cable-internet division in a $30bn deal.
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