SBC Communications Inc has quit its efforts in the cable-telephone services business announcing a plan to sell its stake in its two Washington-area systems for around $606m in cash and debt to a partnership formed by Prime Cable and the Carlyle Group. Prime Cable has been the manager of the two cable systems since August 1996. Under the deal, Prime and the privately held Carlyle investment group will acquire SBC’s 94.6 percent interest in the two systems. Prime, which purchased a 5.4 percent stake in the systems from SBC Communications when it began managing them, will continue as manager. In addition, the partnership is to purchase SBC’s option to acquire a 75 percent interest in Prime Cable of Chicago. SBC had obtained the option when it acquired Pacific Telesis this April. The two systems are Cable Television Montgomery, which has more than 210,000 subscribers, and Cable Television Arlington with about 58,000 subscribers. SBC purchased the businesses in 1993 for $650m with plans of investing several hundred millions more to upgrade them. The company says the deal values the businesses at $637m. SBC is reported to have been looking for a purchaser for the companies for the past few years.
