Cable & Wireless Plc and two of its business partners are to merge their cable television operations into what will become the third largest cable operator in the UK. The joint company, BCETI Cable Ltd, is to be floated later this year. The deal will bring together Cable’s C&W Cable Ltd subsidiary and the cable TV operations of BCE Inc’s Bell Canada International, Jones Intercable Inc and Jones Global Group Inc. These will be subsumed into BCETI Cable Ltd, which is currently 80% owned by Bell Canada and 20% owned by Cable & Wireless. Bell Canada has almost 30,000 cable subscribers in London and the South East, while Jones has 16,000 subscribers in the south-east, Leeds and East Anglia. Both BCI and Jones run many franchises as joint ventures with Cable & Wireless subsidiary Mercury Communications Ltd. A spokesman said BCETI would be floated in both London and New York, and will become the third largest cable company in the UK, after Nynex Corp and TeleWest Ltd. The deal has not yet been finalised; it’s conditional on definitive agreements, and on the completion of the flotation. Financial details were not released.
