Comcast, Time Warner Complete Restructuring

Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Inc. completed the previously announced restructuring of their Kansas City and Texas cable joint ventures Monday.

Prior to the restructuring, Texas Cable Partners served about 1.2 million basic-cable subscribers in Houston and other south Texas communities, and Kansas City Cable Partners served about 300,000 basic-cable subscribers in Kansas City, Mo.

Under the restructuring, Time Warner Cable and Comcast merged the Kansas City partnership into the Texas joint venture, with each owning 50%; extended Time Warner Cable’s management of the partnership for two years; and agreed to allow either party to trigger a split of the partnership after June 1, 2006.

The two MSOs also agreed to give the nontriggering party the right to choose to take full ownership of one of two pools on the combined systems -- one consisting of the Houston systems and the other the Kansas City and south Texas systems -- with an arrangement to distribute the debt among the pools.

The remaining pool of systems and any debt associated with that pool would be owned by whichever company triggered the split.