UPDATE, 7/19/12, 6:15 p.m. EDT: Information on Wiley Rein’s role as an adviser to Cogeco Cable has been added in the seventh paragraph. McGuireWoods’ role as adviser to Bank of America Merrill Lynch has been added in the eighth paragraph.
Montreal-based cable provider Cogeco Cable Inc. said Wednesday that it will expand into the United States by acquiring Atlantic Broadband from private equity firms ABRY Partners and Oak Hill Capital Partners for $1.36 billion.
Once the deal is complete, Cogeco will serve more than 1.1 million basic cable subscribers across Canada and the U.S., according to the company’s announcement of the acquisition. Quincy, Massachusettsbased Atlantic, which serves roughly 250,000 subscribers in Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, is America’s fourteenth-largest cable television operator.
The deal comes just months after Cogeco abandoned its European expansion efforts. The company paid $656 million for Portuguese cable company Cabovisão-Televisão por Cabo in 2006. But that unit’s struggles, coupled with Europe’s ongoing economic woes, led Cogeco to sell Cabovisão-Televisão por Cabo in March in a $59 million deal, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Bloomberg reported in May that Atlantic had set a target sale price of roughly $1.4 billion, and that the company’s private equity owners had already received preliminary bids.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Stikeman Elliott are advising Cogeco on the acquisition. Simpson Thacher’s team includes New York M&A partners Gary Horowitz and Ellen Patterson. Tax partner Robert Holo, banking partner James Cross, and compensation and benefits partner David Rubinsky are also advising.
The Stikeman group working on the deal includes Montreal-based corporate partner Warren Katz and financial services partner Jean Lamothe.
