CBS Says Stock Buy-Back Oversubscribed Fourfold

CBS Inc. said Thursday that its shareholders had oversubscribed fourfold its tender offer for 6.4 million shares of its stock. Among the tenderers was Turner Broadcasting System, whose unfriendly bid for the company was partially responsible for the CBS repurchase plan.

Turner Broadcasting said it had tendered its small stake of 127,000 shares “because the CBS self-tender is, in essence, a dividend being made available to all CBS shareholders.”

CBS said its shareholders had tendered 25.6 million shares to the offer, in which the network had offered to repurchase shares for cash and notes valued at about $150 per share. That means that the company will accept about 25% of each tenderer’s shares. The oversubscription is unsurprising as most investment firms had advised clients to tender.

Turner Broadcasting, which is owned by Atlanta television entrepreneur Ted Turner, said it has no current plans to sell shares that are not bought by CBS.

The CBS offer expired at midnight Wednesday, a day after a federal judge in Atlanta rejected Turner’s motion for an injunction against it. Because the repurchase terms carry limitations on CBS’ financial structure, including its long-term debt, it has the effect of rendering Turner’s debt-loaded, no-cash bid impossible.

Turner has said he is still considering ways to keep his $5.2-billion bid alive. Financial analysts on Wall Street say that, to do so, he must come up with a significant amount of cash, something that has eluded him so far.