Goodwill hunting

27 January 2021 By Jennifer Saba Follow @jennifersaba

The U.S. telecom firm took a $16 bln write-down on pay-TV unit DirecTV, which it bought for $67 bln in 2015. It’s not the only part of AT&T facing tough times. Time Warner, which cost $109 bln, is struggling because of theater closures – a trend that may not reverse.

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AT&T on Jan. 27 took a $15.5 billion charge to write down the value of assets in its video division, which includes pay-TV unit DirecTV. The U.S. telecoms firm bought DirecTV in 2015 for $67 billion, including debt.

Private equity firm TPG is in exclusive talks to take a minority stake in DirecTV that could value the satellite service at $15 billion, Reuters reported on Jan. 22.

AT&T reported that during the fourth quarter its video unit had a net loss of 644,000 customers. For the full year in 2020, total video connections fell 16% year-over-year to 17 million subscribers.

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