- The new company will transition its name to Cox Communications within one year
- Charter's CEO said there would be some layoffs for "same-type of titles," but it would be "de minimis" to the overall company
- The combined company will start rebranding its customer facing services to "Spectrum" within a month
Charter Communications today announced it has completed its transaction with Cox Communications, and it’s also completed its acquisition of Liberty Broadband Corporation. The new company will transition its name from Charter to Cox within one year of closing. The combined company’s footprint crosses 45 U.S. states, passing 70 million homes and businesses.
The company will remain headquartered in Charter’s offices in Stamford, Connecticut, but will also keep a significant presence in Cox’s offices in Atlanta, Georgia.
Meanwhile, Cox Enterprises, the family-owned parent company that previously owned Cox Communications, remains an independent company. Cox Enterprises and its subsidiaries now own about 26% of Charter’s outstanding shares.
Alex Taylor, chairman and CEO of Cox Enterprises, becomes chairman of Charter’s board of directors, and two Cox board members — Dallas Clement and Mark Greatrex — will also join Charter’s 13-member board.
Charter CEO Chris Winfrey will continue in his current role as President, CEO and board member.
Concurrent with the closing of the Cox deal, Charter closed its transaction with Liberty Broadband. Under the terms of that agreement, each holder of Liberty Broadband Series A, B and C common stock received 0.236 of a share of Charter common stock.
On a call today with media, Winfrey was asked if there would be any layoffs. He said, “Of course there will be reduction of same-type of titles and overhead, but that's a de minimis part of the overall company. There will be some of that as natural as part of the transaction, but it's not going to be impacting the front line. If anything, we're investing in service and sales.”
To welcome its new customers, Charter’s customer-facing brand Spectrum will offer Cox internet subscribers a free mobile line for one year unless they already subscribe to Cox Mobile.
Otherwise, customers will see no changes to their services or pricing for the time being, unless they choose to make a change themselves.
In mid-September, Charter plans to launch its entire suite of products to all consumers, including existing customers in former Cox markets.
On the call, Winfrey added that in about a month’s time the company will rebrand with the Spectrum name in all of the Cox markets, including on buildings, trucks, and customer bills.
Conditions of approval
As part of approving the deal between Charter and Cox, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) required a number of new customer protections in California, including automatic bill credits for qualifying service outages lasting two hours or longer, continued honoring of eligible residential “price for life” service agreements, and elimination of equipment exchange fees when customers upgrade or downgrade qualifying residential cable television service or return rented equipment in-person.
Today, Charter made some commitments to all its customers. Within the next year it will fix service disruptions quickly, including same-day technician dispatch when requested before 5 pm; or the next day if requested after 5 pm. It will provide customers with credits for outages that last longer than two hours.
In terms of service outages, Winfrey said, “In reality, we're often on site within two hours or less.”
The company will also work over the next 18 months to return all of Cox’s customer service functions to the U.S. in order to provide 24/7 customer service with a 100%-U.S. based workforce. All U.S.-based customer service employees will earn a starting wage of at least $20 per hour with benefits, including healthcare and retirement contributions.
“We'll also be bringing over 1,000 new sales positions in our new markets,” said Winfrey.
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