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Big Media Merger Talks: ATT + CNN + Discovery + TNT

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11 comments on Big Media Merger Talks: ATT + CNN + Discovery + TNT

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Mega Merger

The WSJ reports ATT in Talks to Combine Assets 

The talks, which cover CNN and other parts of AT&T’s WarnerMedia division, including the TNT and TBS cable channels, are advanced, and an agreement could be reached by Monday, the people said.

Possible Inclusions

  • ATT
  • CNN
  • TNT
  • TBS
  • Discovery 
  • HGTV
  • Warner Media

It’s not a done deal yet but if it happens look for ATT to reduce expenses which means reducing redundancies and slashing jobs. 

The lead image from June 2018 when ATT bought TimeWarner and in the process became the most indebted nonfinancial corporation.

I added notes on the current proposal. 

 ATT’s Balance Sheet

ATT’s Balance Sheet shows that it has $160.694 billion in long-term debt as of March 31, 2021, up from $153.775 billion on December 31, 2020.

Total current liabilities are 76.608 billion up from $63.438 billion as of December 31, 2020.

ATT is the most indebted nonfinancial company in the US.

Ford is #2

For comparison purposes here is Ford’s March 31, 2021 Quarterly Report. 

Ford has both a financial and a nonfinancial aspect thanks to Ford Credit (See page 21).

Excluding Ford Credit, debt is $29.653 billion, with Ford Credit at  $128.979 billion.

Nonfinancial Corporate Debt Kings

  1. ATT
  2. Ford 
  3. Verizon
  4. Comcast
  5. Pemex
  6. Evergrande
  7. Anheuser-Bush
  8. Softbank
  9. Apple
  10. General Electric

That list is as of May 26, 2020, according to Global Finance The World’s Most Indebted Companies.

ATT Dividends

Despite its #1 debt ranking, ATT still pays a dividend. 

The board of directors of AT&T Inc. declared a quarterly dividend of $0.52 a share on the company’s common shares on March 26, 2021.

A Word About Customer Service

I have had the unfortunate need to call ATT many times for service issues on wireless, a land line, and internet issues.

ATT is the absolute worst in customer service of any company I have ever dealt with. 

It is very hard to get a live person. It’s automated interface is the worst I have seen.

None of its units talk with each other and if you end up in the wrong place you have to start all over.

Mish

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Mike Shedlock

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paperboy
paperboy
2 years ago
History:
my interaction with the net goes back to gopher (look it up kids) so I’ve seen a few things.
AT&T has a bad habit of both buying in at the wrong time and destroying their purchase.
The two I saw firsthand was buying an online service (aol competitor) as the web started becoming known and buying an overly expensive laptop making company just as dell and compaq got into the business. I’m sure there is more but I quit watching them at that point.  
Will be interesting to see how they mess this up. 
And their customer service has always been garbage, all the way down the line
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Maximus_Minimus
Maximus_Minimus
2 years ago
Anheuser-Bush is a subsidiary of InBev, a global conglomerate built on debt, and maker of the worst piss you can buy in a pub.
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Casual_Observer2020
Casual_Observer2020
2 years ago
I dumped AT&T 10 years and never looked back. Horrible company. Even the people I know that work there say its a terrible company. 
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Anon1970
Anon1970
2 years ago
If you think it is hard getting a hold of anyone at AT&T, trying talking to a live person at Interactive Brokers.
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LostNOregon
LostNOregon
2 years ago
See Mish – this is a great example of what I meant in your other article about the 1% not contributing anything.   There is the rare Steve Jobs who invented amazing things that we didn’t know we needed. But in all companies there comes a time where the “experts” come in and say “We can’t have this guy/woman running the company. They are just dreamers and will bankrupt us!” 
So the people come in who no longer invent or innovate or do anything that creates jobs or wealth for anyone but themselves.  They do financial engineering, right-sizing, realignments, re-focusing, core competencies, expanding our footprint, and scores of other gobbledygook MBA terms. In the end, all they do (and all this AT&T merger will do) is to evaporate wealth for anyone other than themselves.
They pay themselves enormous bonuses with lots of stock options and RSUs every time they do some crap like this long before the evidence comes in that it was a total crock of s$%t.  I watched one VP personally evaporate $300 million before the company finally canned him.  BUT, he got those large bonuses, option grants, and RSUs before they canned him and nothing was clawed back.
Okay, off the soapbox!  Thanks for keeping us all apprised of this stuff!
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Since2008
Since2008
2 years ago
AT&T has the worst customer service of any company I’ve ever contacted in my life. For years after dropping DIRECTV I could not see my bill. I would spend four hours a day some days on the phone bouncing back-and-forth with different offices while multitasking on other work while on hold. Each AT&T dept blamed the other. I kept notes for a while… I talked to people in many departments in many countries. Most of them pointed the finger at the “combined billing department“ who insisted the problem wasn’t theirs.  Then I decided it really ot wasn’t worth it. My bill was basically the same every month anyway. I decided to slowly switch even though I would save money by having more lines on one account from AT&T.
  I’ve only had AT&T for years and years and years.  Never anyone else. Never any other providers.  We are now slowly migrating to Verizon. I haven’t had to call Verizon yet but I’m wondering if they will be any better…
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numike
numike
2 years ago
Most economists believe the inflation we’re seeing now is nothing to fret over, and a result of pent-up demand due to the pandemic, but that didn’t stop Fox’s Newt Gingrich from fear-mongering over a return to the stagflation of the 1970s. During a segment on this Saturday’s Watters World, Gingrich was asked by Watters whether Biden “has the tools in the toolkit to recognize the problems and fix them?”
Gingrich responded by first trying to paint Biden as being too senile to hold office, before railing about liberals supposedly being soft on crime, the pipeline hacking (which Republicans have no intention of doing anything about, since they hate regulation), and saying we need to “rethink our entire approach to the hacking question,” without offering a single suggestion as to just what that “approach” should be. He then proceeded to try to portray Biden as the second coming of Jimmy Carter and over-hyping inflation concerns.
GINGRICH: This feels more like Jimmy Carter than I would have thought possible. I think maybe it was the gas lines that were the final break through. You think about it, you’re getting stagflation, which is what they called it when Carter was president.
That’s when you have stagnant jobs and inflation at the same time. Reagan put that together into a misery index. He added the unemployment number and the inflation number, and the hidden… the underlying inflation numbers are stunning. At a minimum, the highest rate of inflation since 1982, and at a maximum, maybe even higher than that because of the way they keep score.
Now, you said something that’s really important and I want to build on that, and that is inflation is a hidden tax.
The real Biden tax is this inflation, and it’s making every American poorer. You are about 4 percent poorer than you were a year ago because the dollar doesn’t buy as much.
And so, when Biden says says he’s not going to tax anybody under $400,000, as long as you don’t buy gasoline, you don’t buy electricity, you don’t buy food, you don’t pay for a house. And go down the list of everything you’re paying for because it’s all being inflated, and I think that’s a key part of this.
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Dean2020
Dean2020
2 years ago
I do EVERY thing I can to avoid ATT due to the reasons stated
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Jojo
Jojo
2 years ago
Oh yeah, AT&T sucks both as a company and for so-called customer service.  I usually swap back and forth between them and Comcast each year for internet/cable.  When each raises the price at the end of 12 months, I swap out to the other one.  But this year, I got a 2 year price lock-in from Comcast, so might not do that unless Comcast tries to screw me by jacking up their “Regional Sports Fee” & “Broadcast TV Fees” that the FCC and FTC do not regulate.
I had AT&T U-verse up until Feb.  Their cable box is something from back in 2005.  Awful and a real pain to use.  But I understand that AT&T is not selling U-verse any longer and Direct TV is dead so all that they offer new customers is streaming.  Comcast’s voice control is remote/box is head and shoulders above AT&T.
If you are having problems with AT&T customer support, try calling their Dallas HQ and ask for Executive Complaints or the office of the president.  That has helped me in the past.
 
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davebarnes2
davebarnes2
2 years ago
Pemex, not Permex.
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Mish
Mish
2 years ago
Reply to  davebarnes2
Thanks
Fixed
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