PE-Backed Companies Connecting with Strategic Buyers

A consortium including PE firms The Carlyle Group, Crestview Partners and MidOcean Partners has completed its $3 billion sale of Insight Communications to Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC). Insight is a cable operator serving customers in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. The company was taken private by its management and Carlyle in December 2005 and has been backed by Crestview and MidOcean since April 2010.

Since the beginning of 2007, PE investors have exited 66 companies in the Communications & Networking industry, according to the PitchBook Platform. Sales to strategic buyers (corporate acquisitions) have dominated the exit activity, accounting for 73% of the exits. However, large corporate acquisitions like the Insight Communications deal have been a relatively rare occurrence. Instead, most of the corporate acquisitions have occurred in the lower and lower middle-market space.