Time Warner Cable has entered into a definitive merger agreement to purchase Insight Communications for $3 billion in cash.
The transaction, subject to customary closing conditions, will fortify Time Warner Cable's mideastern presence, adding more than 750,000 subscribers in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Insight is owned by The Carlyle Group, Crestview Partners, MidOcean Partners, members of Insight management and others. Carlyle and Insight management took the company private in December 2005, and Crestview and MidOcean purchased a significant stake in the company in April 2010.
The transaction follows months of negotiating for Insight and an auction process that drew bids from WideOpen West and Mediacom Communications, both of which dropped out of the process earlier this month. The other final round auction contender, Cablevision Systems, evidently didn't make a bid.
Time Warner Cable was never part of the auction process, but given its clout and the contiguity of systems in the area was always considered to be a likely buyer of Insight.
