Charter, one of the largest cable and high speed companies in the country, buys Cox, a small cable and high speed business.
If you are a client of any business, you might be vaguely interested in what the agreement means for you. And what could you think if you are the President of the United States?
Well, Charter hopes you will think it is a matter that makes America again great.
It is a real sign of the time in the Trump 2.0 era: a fairly standard proposed merger is considered an explicitly pro-American agreement.
But don’t believe me. Consult the charter press release, which indicates that the agreement will produce “powerful advantages for American employees, customers, communities and shareholders”.
Charter also promises that the agreement “will provide high -value products that save money to American families, and we will germinate jobs abroad to create new well -paid careers for American employees”.
And in case you have not taken over the first two times, Charter is happy to underline the point. He indicates that this agreement “puts America first by returning jobs from abroad and creating new customer services and sales careers”.
Charter is also happy to say the same upside down: he says that this affair is bad for bad people who do not live in America. “The combined company will retain its leadership industry leadership in the protection of American communication networks against foreign threats,” said the company.
The journalist responsible and fair in me must note that at least part of the charter field does not seem to be built only for the benefit of President Donald Trump: Charter previously pushed to bring back the customer service jobs which he used to outsource in other countries in America.
It was something that Trump liked to hear charter the first time he was in office – even if they were plans that Charter had made before Trump’s election.
GOOD. And it is certainly not unusual that large companies supervise mergers and acquisitions in an explicit manner intended to appeal to politicians and regulators. But these arguments generally aimed to know if these offers would reduce competition (standard line for any old business by buying another: “We must do it to face Big Tech.”)
It’s… very different. We also do not know if it will work: the Trump 2.0 era has been quite dispersed in terms of the type of antitrust transactions or other regulatory bars, and which are opposed.
But at least it raises eyebrows. “It was a press release from Maga,” someone marked me with a charter competitor. Leave not said: maybe it is a good approach?
businessinsider
