Just for the curious, Telewest have recently been upgraded in outlook by a couple of the big merchant banks:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ud?s=TLWT
Meanwhile NTL were in that same Morgan Stanley valuation downgraded:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ud?s=NTLI
NTL are now valued at approximately $5.34B
Telewest $4.49B
Telewest are about 2/3rds the size of ntl in terms of homes passed, however they have a higher broadband penetration in their areas than ntl, and according to the stock markets are worth far more than their relative size suggests.
Of course the fact that ntl have lost over 10% of their value recently might be a minor issue.
Just a little something for the merger watchers out there, or those holding shares in both companies. The relative closeness in valuations along with the more positive outlook on Telewest shares should make the merger talks more interesting.
I'd love to be a fly in the wall in the board meetings. Any of the old school ntl /Cabletel who still have their jobs thinking that maybe it wasn't such a hot idea trying to be better at telecomms than BT, better at TV than BSkyB and better at business services than BT, Cable and Wireless or Energis, while building the assets to do this with someone else's cash?
Oooo interesting idea, who'd like to see the residential cable side of ntl split from the business/telecomms/wholesale side? I think that'd be quite a good thing, have the cable network run by a cableco, rather than a telco. Views?
P.S. The second option is supposed to end 'it is'
