The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have no antitrust issues with John Malone’s (Liberty Interactive) deal to buy Alaskan cable and phone company General Communication Inc.
That came in an early termination notice from the FTC Wednesday, which means that the feds have closed their antitrust review ofthe $1.1 billion deal without recommending either blocking or conditioning it.
The FCC still has to weigh in with its separate public-interest take on the deal. The commission looks beyond antitrust issues to the potential benefits of a merger. The companies have said they expect the deal to close by first quarter 2018.
GCIhas about 108,000 cable sub in Alaska and is the state’s largest telephone and wireless company.
(Photo via Jeff Kubina's Flickr. Image taken on June 20, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 16x9 aspect ratio.)
