Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp., the two biggest U.S. cable-television companies, won court approval Tuesday to buy Adelphia Communications Corp. for $17.6 billion in cash and stock in the largest bankruptcy sale in U.S. history.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber approved the sale without a creditor vote more than 14 months after Time Warner and Comcast agreed to buy the assets as part of a plan to end Adelphia’s bankruptcy case. Approval was slowed by fighting among creditors over how to distribute proceeds to repay more than $18 billion in Adelphia debt.
Philadelphia-based Comcast will strengthen its position in Pennsylvania and Florida, and Time Warner Cable will become the largest cable provider in New York and Los Angeles.
“Good business reasons exist for conducting the sale,” Gerber said in a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.
A provision of the bankruptcy code allows a debtor to sell assets without a creditor vote. Such a sale was necessary “to prevent the risk of losing the sale altogether,” he said, citing disagreements among creditors.
Adelphia had previously planned to sell its assets under a plan of reorganization, which would have required a creditor vote.
Hearings begin today in New York on confirmation of the reorganization plan.
Adelphia is based in Greenwood Village and owns cable systems from Los Angeles to Miami.
