Charter Q3 Loss Narrows

(RTTNews) - Charter Communications, Inc. (CHTR) reported a net loss for the third quarter of $53 million or $0.49 per share, compared to a net loss of $70 million or $0.68 per share for the year-ago quarter.

Third quarter revenues rose 8% to $2.29 billion from $2.12 billion a year ago, led by residential revenue growth of 6.7% and commercial revenue growth of 17.7%.

Analysts polled by Thomson Ruters expected the company to earn $0.07 per share on revenue of $2.29 billion for the third quarter.

Separately, Charter said that its subsidiary, CCOH Safari, LLC, plans to publicly offer $1.5 billion in aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured notes due 2022 and 2024.

Charter plans to use the net proceeds from the sale of the notes to finance its acquisition, from Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), of cable systems serving about 1.5 million Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) video customers. The net proceeds may also be used for any "true up" payment made by Charter to Comcast associated with the previously announced asset transfer between Charter and Comcast of cable systems serving about 1.5 million TWC video customers and about 1.6 million Charter video customers, and transaction and financing expenses.

All funds from the notes will remain in escrow at CCOH Safari, LLC until the closing of the previously announced transactions between Charter and Comcast, at which time the Notes will become an obligation of Charter's subsidiaries, CCO Holdings, LLC and CCO Holdings Capital Corp.