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09/21/2017
Comcast’s top government guy says Trump won’t stop many mergers
President Donald Trump has previously threatened to break up Comcast* while repeatedly taken aim at one of its rivals, AT&T, as the wireless giant inches closer to purchasing Time Warner.
But Comcast’s leading voice in Washington, D.C. — David Cohen — told Recode that the regulatory climate for big mergers remains as friendly as ever in the nation’s capital, no matter what Trump himself has said.
“Overall, this president and this administration is likely less hostile to horizontal growth or even vertical growth in the telecom space and elsewhere,” Cohen explained during an interview that will air this weekend on C-SPAN’s “The Communicators.”
By vertical, Cohen meant mergers that open companies to new lines of business; with respect to horizontal, he was referring to deals that combine two companies that directly compete against each other. “I don’t think that’s a license for ‘anything goes,’” Cohen continued. But, he added there’s “pretty clearly going to be less hostility and a greater willingness to allow the market to work.”
Of course, there’s no shortage of transactions currently awaiting the U.S. government’s approval — deals that will test Cohen’s thesis. For one thing, AT&T is far enough along in its quest to buy Time Warner that regulators studying it at the Justice Department are now weighing whether to apply conditions on the deal, sources have said.
It’s a radical departure from Trump’s promises on the campaign trail to block the merger outright. Other reports even suggested White House aides aimed to use the merger as leverage against CNN, the Time Warner-owned news outlet that’s covered Trump critically.
At the Federal Communications Commission, meanwhile, telecom regulators are still reviewing Sinclair’s $3.9 billion bid to buy Tribune Media — a mega deal that could see the combined companies reach as many as 70 percent of American households. And the FCC could have additional work to do in wireless if reports prove true and Sprint and T-Mobile finally try to combine forces.
