The merger between Adelphia Communications Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. is expected to close July 31, resulting in a changeover of cable providers for the bulk of the San Fernando, Simi and Santa Clarita valleys by next year, company officials said. Adelphia cable subscribers will have their service switched to Time Warner service starting in the fall, said Deane Leavenworth, a spokesman for Time Warner. Customers should expect no decrease of service and the acquisition will not result in any lost jobs, Leavenworth said. “Every employee who is an employee in good standing at the time of the close will have a job,” he said. “We have found over the years that when we launch new products, we need people to install, maintain and operate those products.” Leavenworth added that Adelphia customers should see new perks, such as digital telephone service not offered by their former cable provider. “People in the Valley should expect to see new services,” he said. The main work, which will continue into 2007, will involve upgrading and converting existing infrastructures and transitioning employees. Leavenworth said a key would be creating a seamless integration of the two companies’ customer service operations as the transition moves forward. The shift, which in effect monopolizes the Los Angeles cable market, comes after federal regulators on July 13 approved the nearly $17 million purchase of bankrupt Adelphia Communications Corp. by Stamford, Conn.-based Time Warner Cable Inc. and Comcast Corp., headquartered in Philadelphia. Under the terms of the complex agreement, the two companies will divvy up Adelphia’s national portfolio of about 5 million customers in 31 states, including 1.2 million in Southern California. Then, to lessen the competition further, normally rivals Time Warner and Comcast have agreed to hand over key markets so that each side dominates certain areas of the country. For example, Time Warner is giving Comcast its Minneapolis and Memphis customers while Comcast is handing over its customers in Los Angeles and Dallas. In the greater Valley area, Comcast will surrender its customers in Sunland, Tujunga, Valencia, Saugus and a portion of Santa Clarita, said Patti R & #246;ckenwagner, vice president of communications for Comcast, Southern California. Those customers will then be added to Adelphia customers in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Agoura Hills and most of the southern rim of the San Fernando Valley and Time Warner’s existing 125,000 customers mostly in the West Valley. The new Time Warner coverage will stretch from Toluca Lake to Camarillo and beyond. (About 25 percent of the L.A. market will continue to be served by Cox and Charter cable systems, along with a number of municipally operated providers.) The changeover is the latest and perhaps final blow for Colorado-based Adelphia, which has been in financial strife in recent years amid many customer service complaints and increasing competition from satellite providers. The 54-year-old company filed Chap. 11 bankruptcy in 2002 after its CEO and chief financial officer stepped down following allegations of financial wrongdoing. For the second quarter ended March 31, Adelphia reported a net loss of $171 million or $0.68 diluted net loss applicable to common stockholders per weighted average share on revenues of $1.1 billion. Time Warner Cable’s parent, Time Warner, owns Burbank-based Warner Bros. and a litany of other companies, from AOL to HBO to New Line Cinema. Homebuilder Uncertainty As the nation’s housing market gets increasingly murky, Calabasas-based homebuilder Ryland Group reported a 39 percent dive in new orders and a 9 percent drop in profit for the second quarter of 2006. Quarterly net income was $94.8 million, or $2.03 per diluted share, on revenue of $1.2 billion. Those numbers are slightly above estimates that pegged net income at $93.9 million, or $1.93 a share, on sales of $1.24 billion, but 3.3 percent behind earnings from a year ago, which came in at $104.3 million, or $2.10 a share. The company has had to deal with rising expenses and a limited overall revenue increase of just 3 percent, or $1.2 billion, from $1.16 billion last year. While the average closing price of a home grew by 8.5 percent to $295,000 for the quarter, the long-term picture is less rosy. New order units are down 39.4 percent for the quarter to 3,023 from a year prior. In a conference call to investors, Ryland CEO and President Chad Dreier said the quarterly downturn was nationwide, although it was especially pronounced in the southwest. Western states accounted for only 450 news homes, down from 1,219 just 12 months ago. “Conditions in most markets have not improved and buyers remain cautious. While we knew that eventually there would be a slowdown in housing, this downturn happened quicker than expected,” he said. “The sales environment remains extremely challenging in just about every market.” The nearly 50-year-old company in May said it expected between $8.50 and $9 in profit for each share, only to trim its earnings forecast for the year to between $7.75 and $8.25 a share. Amgen’s Solid Quarter Thousand Oaks biopharmaceutical giant Amgen saw a jump in revenue and earnings for the second quarter of 2006 ended June 30. The company reported net earnings of $14 million, or $0.01 per diluted share, on revenue of $3.6 billion, a 14 percent increase from a year prior. The company said the gains were partially the result of its 26 percent increase in sales of the anemia drug Aranesp, which increased to $1.06 billion, up from $893 million in the first quarter. Amgen also recently entered into late-stage trial on its Sensipar/Mimpara drug, used to treat stage five chronic kidney disease. At 3,800 patients at 500 sites, it is being called the largest clinical trial of its kind to date.
