AT&T, Cablevision complete system swap

NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — AT&T Corp. said it transferred stock, cash and a cable-television network with about 130,000 customers in the suburbs of New York City to Cablevision Systems Corp. in exchange for cable systems serving 358,000 customers in Boston and eastern Massachusetts. Cablevision received about 44 million AT&T shares, worth $870 million based on the average price for the last 20 trading days, and about $300 million in cash, in addition to the network, AT&T spokeswoman Eileen Connolly said. The transaction helps both companies increase the size of their customer clusters, generating savings and enabling efficient introduction of new services. With the transaction complete, the Boston-area system forms AT&T’s largest cluster, with nearly 2 million customers. Cablevision said it now serves about three million households in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.