Altice USA buys Morris Broadband in $310 Million deal

Altice USA snapped up Morris Broadband, a provider of high-speed Internet and cable TV services to customers in North Carolina. The deal, which is valued at $310 million, will expand Altice’s operations in North Carolina where it already has a presence through its 2015 acquisition of Suddenlink. Morris Broadband is a division of Morris Communications, which is a privately held media company based in Georgia that also owns newspapers, radio stations and billboards. The company has about 36,500 residential and business customers in western North Carolina and its broadband footprint includes approximately 89,000 homes passed giving it about a 35% broadband penetration rate. Altice said that with this purchase of Morris Broadband, North Carolina will be the sixth largest state for the company’s operations in terms of number of residential customers.  The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter and Altice said that it expects to realize the full value of the transaction within two years of closing.