The latest round of bids for the Weather Channel are due Friday. In earlier rounds, bids only reached $3.5 billion, instead of the $5 billion the parent company, Landmark Communications Inc., was asking.
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Top bidders are reportedly Time Warner Inc., and NBC Universal, along with private equity partners Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital. CBS fell out of the auction
after acquiring Cnet Networks Inc. for $1.8 billion.
Not like it surprises anyone, but Time Warner
is interested in buying the Weather Channel as a companion for its CNN news network, chief financial officer John Martin told investors, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal.
"I would think [the winning bid] would most likely go to TWX or NBC Universal, probably around $3.5 billion, with another, possibly final round of bids coming in today. Weather could be rationalized with a host of media conglomerates, but these two have been the most chatted about," David Joyce, an analyst at Miller Tabak + Co. LLC told The Deal via e-mail.
- Maria Woehr
