Steve Mandel (Trades, Portfolio), founder and manager of Lone Pine Capital, recently added enough shares to his stake in Charter Communications Inc (CHTR, Financial), currently the third-largest cable operator in the United States, to make it one of his top 20 stakes by volume.
On July 6, Mandel acquired 3,010,321 shares of the Connecticut-based cable telecommunications company, previously the 30th-largest stake in his portfolio, paying an average price of $174.07 per share. The purchase raised Mandel’s stake to 6,338,300 shares.
Earlier this week, Netflix (NFLX, Financial) announced it would support Charter’s efforts to acquire Time Warner Cable (TWC, Financial) and Bright House Networks; if the deals receive the approval of federal regulators, they will create the United States’ second-largest cable operator behind Comcast (CMCSK, Financial).
Currently, Charter serves nearly 6 million customers in 29 states.
Netflix’s support for the deals depends upon Charter’s new Internet interconnection policy, in which Charter promised not to charge access fees to online content providers. Netflix pays such fees to Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon (VZ, Financial) and AT&T (T, Financial).
Netflix opposed Comcast’s bid to take over Time Warner Cable earlier this year.
Charter Communications has a market cap of $20.8 billion and an enterprise value of $41.74 billion. It has a Price/Book of 269 and a Price/Sales of 2.2. Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio), John Griffin (Trades, Portfolio), Chase Coleman (Trades, Portfolio), Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio), John Burbank (Trades, Portfolio), Mario Gabelli (Trades, Portfolio) and Louis Moore Bacon (Trades, Portfolio) have shares of Charter Communications in their portfolios.
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