All things considered, the telecom and cable industries have weathered the economic storm quite well so far. Don’t tell that to Nortel though (truth be told, Nortel’s problems pre date the economic downturn). Speculation is that Charter will soon join Nortel in bankruptcy court. So much for weathering the storm. Multichannel News is reporting that Charter, the nation’s fourth largest MSO with over 5 million subscribers, is most likely headed for a prepackaged bankruptcy filing. It’s widely known that Charter is the most leveraged service provider in the industry, with mountains of potentially ‘crushing’ debt. Charter stock was trading as low as twelve cents on January 14th.
