AT&T Buying Time Warner for $85.4 Billion

AT&T is purchasing Time Warner for a reported $85.4 billion. AT&T will pay $107.50 a share per Time Warner share in cash and stock, the company said in a formal announcement. The deal means AT&T will acquire HBO, Turner Broadcasting System and Warner Bros., which would give the telecom company ownership of television channels, publications and websites. The properties include Cinemax, The CW, Cartoon Network, CNN, TNT and TBS, which has deals to carry MLB and NBA games, DC Comics, Bleacher Report, SI.com and NASCAR.com.

“Premium content always wins,” A&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said in the statement. “It has been true on the big screen, the TV screen and now it’s proving true on the mobile screen. We’ll have the world’s best premium content with the networks to deliver it to every screen.”

Regulators will now have to sign off on the acquisition. Already, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said in a speech that under a potential GOP White House, his administration would not approve the deal.

In 2011, AT&T purchased DirecTV for $48.5 billion and is expected to offer a streaming TV package, DirecTV Now, by the end of the year, aimed at people who have dropped their cable subscriptions or never had one.