Adelphia Buys Century in $5.2bn Cable TV Merger.

Adelphia Communications Corp said Friday it has signed an agreement to acquire Century Communications Corp in a $5.2bn merger of cable television giants. The deal calls for Adelphia to hand over $3.6bn in cash and stock and includes the assumption of $1.6bn in debt. The acquisition of Century, which comes only a week after Adelphia acquired Frontier Vision Partners for $1bn, will make it the fifth-largest cable TV operator in the US, with approximately 4.7 million subscribers.

Terms of the agreement call for Century's class A common stockholders to receive cash of $9.16 per share and 0.6122 shares of Adelphia class A stock - for a total market value of $44.14 based on Thursday's closing price - for each Century share they own. In addition Century's class B common stockholders will receive $11.81 in cash and 0.6360 shares of Adelphia class A stock - for a total market value of $48.14 - for each of their shares. Upon completion of the merger, which is expected The transaction is expected during the third calendar quarter, the former stockholders of Century will own approximately 48.7 million shares of the of Adelphia.

The deal came about after Century's board had announced in December that it was exploring strategic alternatives, and a merger with Adelphia was chosen as the answer. With the acquisition of Century, Adelphia says its annual revenues will exceed $2bn and more than 90% of the company's customers will be concentrated in eleven major clusters. Century owns and operates cable systems in California, Colorado and Puerto Rico. It also recently entered into an agreement with Tele-Communications Inc to create a 70%-owned joint venture which will operate a cable system serving 800,000 subscribers in the Los Angeles. Including that venture, Century boasts 1.6 million subscribers. In addition to cable services Adelphia's operations include competitive local exchange and long-distance telephone services, high-speed internet access and paging and security services.