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TDS Buys Baja Broadband

CHICAGO — TDS Telecom, a unit of telecom giant Telephone and Data Systems, has agreed to purchase cable operator Baja Broadband for $267.5 million, the companies said last week.

Baja, based in Alamogordo, N.M, has about 74,000 video customers, 56,000 high-speed data customers and 15,000 digital phone customers in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. It was formed in 2006 after private- equity groups M/C Partners and Columbia Capital teamed up to purchase non-core systems from Charter Communications in New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. Baja added to those assets in 2011 when it purchased the southwestern assets of US Cable. New York boutique investment bank Waller Capital and Denver-based RBC Capital Markets served as financial adviser to M/C Partners and Columbia Capital. RBC Capital Markets was the exclusive M&A adviser to Baja and Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP served as legal counsel to Baja.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. According to a press release, Baja passes about 212,000 homes and had 2012 revenue of $82.4 million.

The Baja acquisition could be the springboard for further deals in the space for TDS.

Albrecht: Starz Balked at Disney Bidding on Price

ENGLEWOOD, COLO. — Starz CEO Chris Albrecht, in the programmer’s first conference call with analysts as a public company, said the premium channel dropped out of the bidding for studio output from The Walt Disney Co. for a simple reason: price.

“There was a bidder in the process that significantly, with a capital ‘S,’ increased the price that was being offered,” Albrecht said on a conference call with analysts Feb. 27. “We looked at the likely supply of those movies, our long-term goals for growth, [and] had made a decision that original programming was clearly the way to go.”

Netflix paid a reported $350 million for the Disney output, more than the $200 million Starz is estimated to have paid. Starz’ Disney output deal expires in 2016. Original programming has become increasingly important to the premium channel — it expects to air about 36 hours of originals in 2013, increasing to 50 hours in the next few years.