AT&T and Time Warner have extended their merger date — yes, again — until June 21, 2018.
In a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the two major media companies waived their rights to terminate the deal until the start of summer.
The troubled merger, which would bring Warner Bros., CNN, HBO and other assets over to the telecom giant, was first agreed upon back in October 2016. The U.S. Department of Justice has since prevented the acquisition from going forward on antitrust grounds, and President Trump — no fan of CNN — has perhaps been the $85 billion deal’s biggest (or at least, loudest) vocal opponent.
The “Termination Date” of the merger agreement had previously been extended to April 22, 2018.
Here’s the full legalese from Thursday’s SEC filing:
As previously disclosed, AT&T Inc. (“AT&T”) entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of October 22, 2016 (the “Merger Agreement”), among Time Warner Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Time Warner”), AT&T, West Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T (“Corporate Sub”), and West Merger Sub II, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T (“Merger LLC”), and under the terms of the Merger Agreement, the “Termination Date” of the Merger Agreement has been extended to April 22, 2018.
On December 21, 2017, AT&T, Time Warner, Corporate Sub and Merger LLC entered into a limited waiver and agreement, pursuant to which AT&T and Time Warner each waived, until June 21, 2018, its right to terminate the Merger Agreement due to a failure to complete their merger contemplated thereunder by April 22, 2018.