Report: Charter’s CEO Butts Heads With Biggest Shareholder

There’s a battle raging inside Charter Communications, and the outcome could decide whether the cable giant continues its acquisition spree — or gets gobbled up itself, according to The NTYPost.

Tom Rutledge

Charter’s Chief Executive Tom Rutledge — who last year swallowed Time Warner Cable and renamed it Spectrum, making Charter the nation’s third-biggest pay-TV operator — insists that he can increase Charter’s dominance with still more purchases.

The NYPost reported in June that Charter was weighing an approach to Cox Communications, an Atlanta-based regional cable provider. More recently, rumors have circulated that Charter has been in talks to do a deal with Altice, which most recently scooped up New York-based Cablevision.

But 76-year-old billionaire John Malone, who is Charter’s biggest shareholder with control of 27 percent of its stock, is meanwhile showing signs that he’s willing to head in the other direction — namely, a sale of Charter at the right price, insiders say.

John Malone

“I think Malone is a seller,” one source told The Post. The source added that “Malone, though, doesn’t control Charter,” and “the board is totally behind Rutledge.”

The Post reported exclusively Nov. 1 that SoftBank, the Japan-based buyout fund that owns Sprint, had rekindled on-again, off-again talks to acquire Charter.

Although a deal isn’t imminent, “I wouldn’t count Malone out,” a telecom executive told The Post. “There is a 50-percent chance a SoftBank-Charter deal happens in six months.”

“My guess is Rutledge has a few quarters to increase the share price,” the telecom exec said.

Skeptics say a tidal wave of cord-cutting, as viewers flock to cheaper streaming services from Netflix and Amazon, is making that look iffy. Charter’s shares on Friday closed at $338.44, well off a Sept. 6 peak of $403.65..