More than 15 years ago, Comcast took its first steps toward taking over NBCUniversal. Now it’s unwinding the media business from the broadband and TV pipes, planning to spin off NBCU and Sky into a stand-alone entity.
So what changed in the intervening years? Mike Cavanagh, Comcast co-CEO who is set to become chief exec of NBCU after it spins off, tried to explain the evolution of the company leadership’s thinking on a call with Wall Street analysts Monday morning.
“There’s no surprise that both the media and telecom landscapes have become increasingly competitive, and that pace of change continues to accelerate,” Cavanagh, who joined Comcast in 2015 originally as CFO.
Cavanagh continued, “And so we simply don’t see these conditions changing anytime soon. So, where we previously believed that scale and the diversification benefits warranted operating these businesses as one company, we’ve now simply changed our mind about that. We’ve now concluded that future success for each of our businesses will depend on focus, speed and strategic flexibility that this separation will unlock, and I think what’s special about this moment is that we have a strong balance sheet and significant financial resources, and that’s going to allow us to set up both companies with their own strong investment-grade balance sheets, enabling their pursuit of future growth and value creation that we see for each new company.”
