Currency conversions
"US$85.4bn or 1.25 Dell-EMCs" or about 3% of a Brexit. </trollbait>
AT&T has agreed to acquire Time Warner for US$85.4bn. Time Warner is a content company that owns HBO, Warner Brothers, Cartoon Network, cable news channel CNN, celebrity gossip outfit TMZ.com, DC Comics, major sporting web sites and plenty of other brands. AT&T is the United States' leading mobile carrier, and also operates …
"Not sure it's going to be worse than now. Maybe we'll be able to watch HBO shows without having a US cable contract."
The downside is probably that those with a US cable contract might then have to take out yet another subscription if some of the shows they want to see are restricted to AT&Ts own outlets.
We already see this now with Amazon and Netflix. Fragmentation of the market caused by the distributors becoming the content providers/owners/creators is only ever bad (and more costly) for the customer.
80 Bln is a lot of dollars. How much of that is in loans? Did they find it down the back of the sofa? Or is it simply a product of under-investment in infrastructure and profit gouging for a decade or so?
I was under the impression the telco business had wafer thin margins!
AT&T overcharges for everything. They always have. They are experts at padding bills. That's why I don't use them anymore. My phone/Internet is from a small company that makes a small profit off me whereas AT&T provided the same services for $30 more a month, every month. Multiply that by a hundred million or more and see where it gets you.