Charter Communications → Cox Communications
Charter's $34.5bn combination with Cox Communications, the largest private broadband company in the United States, paid mainly in Charter partnership units rather than cash — agreed in May 2025 and completed on 20 August 2026, by which time those units were worth less than half what they had been at signing.
Values Cox at $21.9bn of equity plus $12.6bn of net debt; completed in August 2026 after California's utilities commission gave the last approval.
- Value
- $34.5B
- Announced
- May 2025
- Completed
- August 2026
- Sector
- Telecom
- Deal type
- acquisition
- Acquirer
- Charter Communications (United States)
- Target
- Cox Communications (United States)
Why it mattered
Cox, owned by the Cox family's Cox Enterprises, had held a cable franchise since 1962 and was the third-largest US cable television provider; talks with Charter had first been reported in 2017. Charter argued that regional operators now competed with national and even global connectivity companies.
Announced on 16 May 2025, the deal valued Cox at $34.5bn — $21.9bn of equity and $12.6bn of net debt and other obligations — at 6.44 times estimated 2025 adjusted EBITDA, the same multiple as Charter's own. Charter would buy Cox's commercial fibre and managed IT businesses, while Cox Enterprises would contribute the residential cable business to Charter Holdings, the partnership Advance/Newhouse had joined in 2016. In return it would receive $4bn in cash, $6bn of convertible preferred units paying 6.875%, and about 33.6 million common units then valued at $11.9bn, for about 23% of the enlarged company. Cox Enterprises would replace Liberty as Charter's long-term provider of capital, its chief executive Alex Taylor would chair the board, and within a year of closing the parent would be renamed Cox Communications, trading as Spectrum. Charter expected about $500m of annual cost savings within three years.
The Federal Communications Commission approved the deal on 27 February 2026. California's Public Utilities Commission, the last approval needed, voted for it on 13 August 2026, and the deal closed a week later, together with Charter's all-stock purchase of Liberty Broadband.
What it left behind
The terms were fixed in units, not dollars: at closing the 33.6 million units were valued at about $5bn, and Cox Enterprises owned about 26% of the combined company. About $12bn of Cox debt and finance leases stayed with Charter's subsidiaries. On 16 September 2026 Spectrum's products and pricing were launched to more than five million former Cox residential and business customers, taking its reach to more than 70 million homes and businesses in 45 states, with Cox's customer service to return to the United States within 18 months. In mid-September 2026 the parent still traded as Charter; the new name is due by August 2027. When a family seller takes its price in the buyer's equity, it is buying a long-term stake in the sector's fortunes as well as selling its own business.