GE Sells to Comcast

LOS ANGELES — Comcast is buying the rest of NBCUniversal from General Electric several years ahead of schedule to take advantage of low interest rates and what its CEO calls a "very attractive price" of $16.7 billion.

Investors thought the move was good for both companies – GE because it got cash for its stake earlier than expected and Comcast because it will benefit more from the rising price of sports rights and other TV programs. With the NBCUniversal businesses, Comcast avoids solely being in the uncomfortable position of passing those costs onto consumers. That was one reason Comcast bought a majority stake in NBCUniversal two years ago.

Comcast Corp. also raised its annual dividend 20 percent to 78 cents per share and vowed to buy back another $2 billion in shares this year. Following Tuesday's announcement, Comcast's stock jumped 7 percent in after-hours trading. GE's stock rose almost 4 percent.

Comcast's business as a cable TV, Internet and phone provider generates nearly two-thirds of the company's revenue. The NBCUniversal business makes up the rest and includes the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, pay TV channels such as USA, CNBC, Bravo and SyFy, the Universal Pictures movie studio and theme parks in Florida and California.

Comcast has owned 51 percent of NBCUniversal since January 2011, and GE the rest. Comcast had planned to take a larger stake in NBCUniversal over seven years, paying for it from operating cash, starting in July 2014.

But CEO Brian Roberts told The Associated Press that the sale of Comcast's stake in pay TV network A&E and some wireless spectrum gave it plenty of cash on hand. He also said Comcast got a good deal given that the market value of media conglomerates has been rising.

"We thought that we would have to pay more later," he said. "We really have known we wanted to buy 100 percent from the beginning of the transaction. We wanted to learn the business. ... We feel that now is an opportune time."

GE's history with NBC goes back to 1919, when it co-founded the Radio Corporation of America. RCA created NBC as a radio network, figuring that people would buy its radios if they had interesting things to listen to. RCA took full ownership of NBC in 1932, but GE bought it back in 1986 to get a reliable source of cash while overseas manufacturing competition loomed.