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Time Warner Inc. is moving ahead with its planned acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc., the biggest cable company in the United States, after weeks of public pressure that forced the company to put its plans on hold.
The deal is expected to close sometime between Wednesday and Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are confidential.
It is expected that Time Warner will take control of TWC, which operates more than 60 million television sets in homes across the United State.
The companies plan to combine their video services to create a new video service that will compete with DirecTV Inc., which owns Direcbs Direcchannels.
TWC and TWC-owned Viacom have been exploring ways to combine in recent months, but they have not publicly announced a final deal.
Time Warner’s proposed deal with TWC would be a huge move for the video-streaming giant, whose revenues were $9.5 billion in the third quarter, a figure that has ballooned since the release of the movie “Transformers: Age of Extinction.”
The combination could boost the company’s share price to $20, which would represent a 25 percent gain over the $10 price tag it paid for the other two combined businesses last year.
The combined company, called Time Warner Communications Inc., would be called TWC Inc. and would be the biggest provider of Internet video in the country, the companies said in a joint statement.
It would be an even bigger deal for TWC.
Time’s purchase would be worth about $5.6 billion, according the company.
The transaction is expected in the fourth quarter, and Time Warner would own 40 percent of TWA and 25 percent of the combined company.
TWCA is the parent company of NBCUniversal and NBCUniversal Cablevision, two companies that have been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks after Time Warner announced plans to buy Time Warner Television, which owns CNBC and other news channels.
The merger would give Time Warner control of the largest cable network in the U.S., with an estimated 500 million homes.
TWU, which has been losing subscribers, has been on a rapid decline, losing about 3 million subscribers last year, according in a recent research report.
TWTC, meanwhile, has struggled, falling into a downward spiral and facing scrutiny from regulators as well as the public over the way it has handled its finances.
The company said last month that it is under pressure to turn over the information about its finances, as well.
The news comes after months of pressure on TWC from investors and the public, who called for a public company to be bought to replace Time Warner.
The price tag for the deal is still being determined.
In recent weeks, Time Warner had said it would take a “hard look” at the deal, and it has now said it will be done in the second half of the year.
But it has been a slow process, as the company has struggled to sell the deal and is under public pressure to do so.
“We’re not going to rush into a deal,” Time Warner chief executive Jeff Bewkes said last week.
“It will take us a few months to look at it.
We are committed to the deal.”
Time Warner Chief Financial Officer Richard Roth told CNBC in February that the company was taking a “real hard look” into the deal.
He said in the past few months the company had sold a number of assets, and he noted that the merger would be more than a transaction for Time Warner as a whole.
“The combination is a much more significant thing than a single deal,” Roth said.
“This is a merger that is going to impact the company, not just Time Warner.”
The deal will be completed by the end of the month, according of Time’s statement.
The stock of TWU fell 1.5 percent to $24.85 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, following the announcement.
Time will have $6.5bn in cash on hand as of the end to its 2017 quarter, according an SEC filing.
Time shares rose nearly 4 percent to close at $33.13.