Suddenlink Buyout in the Works

Cequel Communications Holdings, which does business as Suddenlink Communications, announced that it and its existing equity holders have reached an agreement under which BC Partners and CPP Investment Board will partner with Suddenlink's management team, led by Chairman and CEO Jerry Kent, to purchase the company for $6.6 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.Suddenlink is the seventh-largest cable operator in the United States and offers television, high-speed Internet and telephony services to more than 1.4 million residential and commercial customers, primarily in Texas, West Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. The company's network passes 3 million homes, is interconnected by a national backbone, and was recently upgraded through the company's $350 million "Project Imagine."