Source: Fox Business | Editor: I knew Laoli
KONTAN.CO.ID – NEW YORK. The banking sector is busy discussing rumors that Amazon CEO and Washington Post newspaper owner, Jeff Bezos, is sniffing out the potential to buy one of AT&T’s most valuable assets, the Cable News Network (CNN).
The information is obtained FOX Business from bankers, although this was denied by people close to Bezos who said, so far there has been no direct discussion about this.
Bezos, the world’s richest man, with a net worth of US $ 200 billion according to Forbes is very likely to invest in a number of leading companies today. Meanwhile CNN is a very valuable asset and can support Bezos’ business.
Meanwhile, AT&T’s current condition is in financial difficulty after acquiring TImeWarmer for US $ 85 billion. This purchase has left AT&T in debt of tens of billions of dollars. As a result AT&T was forced to reorganize its operations and divest some of its assets.
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Moreover, the company’s shares have fallen more than 31% since the beginning of the year. Much lower than its competitor Verizon, whose shares only fell 6.5%.
Rich Greenfield, media and technology analyst at independent research firm LightShed Partners, said in a tweet about Bezos’ logic in buying CNN.
“It’s not surprising to see this company wanting less exposure to (division) news, but I’m a little surprised CNN will be the only asset up for sale considering they have a much stronger digital platform than other Turner properties,” Greenfield told FOX Busines.
Greenfield added that although there was logic to CNN sales he said. would make more sense as part of spin-off larger than all of AT&T’s Turner Broadcasting division, which includes TNT, TBS, truTV, Cartoon Network, Turner Classics, in addition to CNN.
Some bankers said releasing CNN from other media assets would be difficult for AT&T given the various synergies the company has created since the TimeWarner purchase.
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Meanwhile, a number of parties are less confident that AT&T will release CNN.
They noted more of AT&T’s founding management led by CEO John Stankey and Chairman Randall Stephenson initially considered CNN a key element of the TimeWarner deal to be integrated into AT&T.
But both are becoming less comfortable with CNN’s hot button, left-leaning political commentary compared to the friendlier Turner Broadcasting program.
“Nobody at AT&T had a problem with Turner Classic, but they were worried that CNN would upset a lot of Republicans in Washington,” said a banker who had heard Bezos was attracted to CNN.
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