Boston, MA 07/05/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC), the fifth largest cable provider in USA, is the momentum stock right now in the market. Within only three weeks, it has rallied over 35%, from $14 to $19.
Much of the euphoria seems to be based on the sales of the company’s assets. Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR), after a failed attempt to buy the much larger Time Warner Cable, Inc. (NYSE:TWC), has acquired Cablevision’s “Optimum West”, formally known as Bresnan Broadband Holdings, LLC, for an amount of $1.625 billion. Through this deal, Charter gets a firm foothold in the Rocky mountain areas of Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. Last week, Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC) sold, for an undisclosed sum, all of its Clearview Cinemas theaters to Bow Tie Cinemas, making the latter the eighth largest cinema circuit. The two aforementioned sales have definitely brought a lot of cash to Cablevision;however the current rally is partially based on rumors that Charter would proceed to buy Cablevision now that its bid for Time Warner Cable has been aborted. The rumors gained ground on the fact that Charter has indeed re-structured some of its credit agreements in order to assume more debt, piling up cash for potential acquisitions. In that case, the market expects the priceto reach the $25 promptly.
On the other hand, brokerage houses and analysts have been giving Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE:CVC) a deliberate disregard, assigning mostly “Neutral” or “Hold” ratings for the last 3 months. S&P downgraded the stock from stable to negative last week,on the basis of decreasing EBITDA margins, soaring programming expenses and labor costs. The company is also dealing with a case filed against it by the National Labor Relations Board, requesting a stay of proceedings in the Supreme Court, a request that was rejected yesterday.
