In August, we reported on AT&T’s renewed interest in selling DirecTV in an effort to offload debt. The company had reportedly already been actively discussing a sale with Private equity investors at that time. Now, sources have provided additional information, saying that the deal would include a “significant minority stake” in DirecTV, AT&T Now, and U-Verse.
The new report from CNBC says that terms of the deal would have AT&T maintaining majority ownership of each of the businesses. AT&T would continue to control the U-Verse infrastructure while a buyer would take control of pay TV distribution.
The sources for CNBC commented that the deal would value DirecTV at less than $15 billion, aligning with earlier reports that AT&T has been receiving “lowball” offers of under $20 billion after purchasing DirecTV for $49 billion in 2015.
AT&T has consistently been losing video subscribers. The company reported a loss of 627,000 video customers in Q3. 590,000 of those came from U-Verse and DirecTV with an additional 37,000 coming from AT&T TV Now.