D.C. Memo: Major WOW! Shareholder Has Issues with Sale to Crestview, DigitalBridge
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Deal: Trouble ahead? WOW!’s second-largest shareholder issued a statement yesterday that was anything but effusive about the company’s decision to sell to two private equity investors. That wasn’t really a surprise because LB Partners in Charlottesville, Va., has claimed for more than a year that WOW! is worth at least $10 per share and not the $5.20 per share that Crestview Partners and DigitalBridge Investments has agreed to pay to take WOW! private in a $1.5 billion deal announced on Aug. 11, 2025. “While we are happy to see the process conclude, we are surprised at the low price and the lack of a requirement for a majority-of-the-minority vote to approve the deal,” LB Partners Founder Chas Cocke said in an email to Policyband yesterday. LB Partners owns about 8% of WOW! shares. The deal could have another problem: a Pennsylvania law firm is probing the adequacy of the $5.20 offer. Crestview and DigitalBridge made their surprise bid in May 2024. (More after paywall.)
LB Partners Founder Chas Cocke during a November 2021 appearance on the The Meb Faber Show Podcast