Including a twist to the Cable One-Mega Broadband saga, Cable One has requested a New York federal decide to reverse course and dissolve a brief restraining order positioned on its pending acquisition for the remainder of Mega Broadband Inc. (MBI) that it doesn’t already personal.
Cable One’s transient filed at the moment (a redacted model is obtainable right here) arrives simply days after the decide briefly blocked the Cable One-MBI settlement after considered one of Cable One’s lenders, CoBank, sought (and obtained) an emergency restraining order to delay the $480 million transaction. CoBank argued the pending deal amounted to a “fraudulent switch,” and that its $1.1 billion of excellent loans to Cable One could be in jeopardy if the transaction had been to undergo.
The decide’s October 9 order to briefly block the transaction arrived simply as Cable One was about to shut its buy of the 55% remaining stake in MBI that it didn’t already personal. MBI owns Vyve Broadband, an operator that had about 210,000 clients and a footprint passing about 657,000 places as of September 2025. In a transaction initiated in 2020, Cable One agreed to accumulate 45% of MBI, with an preliminary possibility to accumulate the remainder beginning in 2023.
Cable One: CoBank waging marketing campaign to ‘torpedo’ the deal
On Monday (October 12), Cable One disputed CoBank’s claims, arguing that the TRO was entered previous to any listening to or courtroom look by the operator, and that it was making progress towards finalizing a sequence of transactions with GTCR LLC (the non-public fairness agency that shaped MBI) and sure present lenders and personal lenders.
Cable One is now asking the courtroom to unblock the deal, or to order CoBank to submit a $480 million bond if the courtroom opts to retain the TRO and transfer forward with a listening to.
Within the transient, Cable One argued partially that CoBank has failed to point out it’ll endure irreparable hurt if the transaction had been to go ahead. Specifically, Cable One held that CoBank didn’t set up it will face an “imminent danger” that Cable One could be unable to make quarterly amortization funds of about $2.5 million within the wake of the transaction.
“CoBank can not present any ‘precise and imminent’ danger of any hurt to its pursuits – a lot much less an irreparable one,” Cable One stated.
Cable One notes it has by no means missed a mortgage cost, and that CoBank and different lenders would have treatments out there to them if that had been to happen. Cable One stated it has been negotiating with CoBank, GTCE and others for “a number of months,” with CoBank providing “a number of financing proposals of its personal” throughout that point.
“Upset that CABO selected the proposed transaction with GTCR and its lender group as being in one of the best pursuits of CABO over CoBank’s most popular transaction CoBank embarked upon a marketing campaign to torpedo the GTCR deal,” Cable One instructed the courtroom. “And CoBank waited till the very day that closing was set to happen earlier than dashing into courtroom searching for to take advantage of an ’emergency’ of its personal creation.”
Cable One additionally holds that CoBank has been attempting to “disrupt” the choice financing preparations that Cable One had negotiated. On that time, the operator stated that by October 2, the operator, GTCR and all of Cable One’s revolving lenders (save for CoBank) had agreed in precept on a financing transaction set to shut on October 9 that would offer Cable One with a brand new mortgage of $1.3 billion. Some $480 million of it was for use to repay revolving debt and in addition to offer Cable One “further runway to execute on its enterprise priorities.”
Cable One additionally alleged that CoBank made an effort to disrupt the transaction by buying Cable One debt on October 8 on the secondary market.
Additional delays will trigger ‘materials danger’ to financing deal, shareholders
Cable One additionally argued that additional delays would create “materials danger” to its aforementioned financing settlement.
The operator added that the delay is likewise inflicting “speedy and ongoing hurt” to Cable One shareholders, noting that its inventory instantly dropped by 20% when CoBank filed the criticism and continued to drop in after-hours buying and selling. Cable One shares rebounded a bit at the moment – they had been up practically 10% in afternoon buying and selling. Cable One shares are down 88% year-to-date.
“On daily basis the TRO stays in place, CABO dangers shedding the financing companions whose interlocking commitments it must fulfill its contractual obligation to GTCR and shore up its stability sheet; its stockholders proceed to bear the uncertainty that has already pushed down the Firm’s inventory worth; and the workers of each CABO and MBI stay in limbo,” Cable One instructed the courtroom.
