DigitalBridge Group and Crestview Partners announced Monday that WideOpenWest, a major broadband services and entertainment provider, has agreed to be taken private for $1.5 billion.
Under the all-cash agreement a consortium of DigitalBridge and Crestview will acquire all outstanding shares of WideOpenWest, dba as WOW!, not already owned by Crestview, its major shareholder. The price of $5.20 per share represents a 37.2 percent premium over the company’s unaffected price of $3.79 and a 63 percent premium from its closing price Friday.
Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, WOW! provides broadband in 20 markets throughout the Midwest and Southeast with 495,200 residential and commercial subscribers spread across Michigan, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. In addition to high-speed and fiber optic internet connections, the company provides cable TV, home phone, business data, voice and cloud services.
Crestview and Avista Capital Partners took the company public in 2017. Avista exited in 2019 and Crestview now owns about 37 percent of the company, shares it intends to roll over in the deal with DigitalBridge.
In the quarter ending June 30, the company reported total revenues of $144.2 million, a decline of 9.2 percent from $158.8 million reported for Q2 2024. The company reported long term debt of $1.042 billion.
The transaction is expected to close by the first quarter of next year.
WOW! advisors included Centerview Partners (special committee) with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as outside legal counsel.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs advised Digital Bridge and Crestview on Finances.
Davis Polk & Wardwell advised Crestview and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett advised DigitalBridge are acting as outside legal advisors.
The Simpson Thacher team included partners Gabriel Silva (New York), Chris May (Houston), Ana Sanchez (Houston) and Keegan Lopez (New York) and associates David Goodman (New York), Braxton Duhon (Houston), Amy Zhou (New York), Arthur Kopilevich (Houston) and Katherine Howard (New York); Brian Gluck (New York), and associate Jackie Song (New York); partner Andrew Purcell (New York) and associate George Rhein (Tax); counsel Ron Ben-Yehuda (Los Angeles) and associate Sara Liu (New York) on IP issues; counsel Dennis Loiacono (Real Estate); partner David Rubinsky (New York) and associates Jesslyn Nunez (New York) and Abigail Janik (New York) on compensation and benefits; and partner Jonathan Lindabury (New York) and associates Nathan Utterback (New York) and Jhaton White (New York) on derivatives.