Charter Communications Inc.

The stable rating outlook on Charter Communications Inc. incorporates S&P Global Ratings' expectation for continued earnings growth, reflecting the healthy demand for the company's profitable broadband service. This is balanced by our belief that the company will continue to pursue share repurchases or acquisitions such that leverage remains within management's targeted range of 4.0-4.5x. Given that the company is currently at the upper end of this range, we do not expect significant increases in leverage. We could lower the rating if adjusted leverage rises above 4.75x on a sustained basis, which would most likely reflect a more aggressive financial policy. Given Charter's growth prospects, we believe it would take about $15 billion in share repurchases in 2019 to push leverage

...We expect high-margin broadband revenue to continue to grow at a healthy rate for the next two years, driven by a combination of price increases and subscriber growth. As broadband becomes increasingly important in the lives of consumers, we believe that demand for faster internet to stream video on multiple devices will allow Charter to raise prices as customers migrate to faster speed tiers. We also believe that Charter will continue to grow subscribers from a combination of increasing homes passed of about 1%-2% per year and market share gains from telco competition using copper-based infrastructure offering inferior speeds, though these opportunities are dwindling....

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