NTL, the UK’s leading cable operator has confounded city predictions and ruled out an imminent merger with its rival Telewest, according to a report in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph.
The two companies are currently undergoing restructuring in a bid to combat mounting debts and it had been assumed that they would join forces once financial stability had been restored.
However, NTL chief executive, Barclay Knapp, was in defiant mood following third quarter results last week (see NTL Earnings Rise As Cost Cutting Continues) and is shortly expected to inform the stock exchange that his firm is prepared to go it alone. NTL is currently concluding a $10.9 billion debt-for-equity swap and is hoping to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the next few weeks.
Telewest, headed by Charles Burdick, had previously intimiated that it was in favour of a merger on the grounds that a single platform was necessary to compete with BT and BSkyB. The operator is in the process of a restructure that aims to wipe out £3.5 billion of its £5.3 billion debt (see Telewest Defers Payments Ahead Of Restructure).
