Brean Capital Sees M&A in Future for Cablevision Systems Corporation

In a report published Wednesday, Brean Capital analyst Todd Mitchell reiterated a Hold rating on

. In the report, Brean Capital noted, “Cablevision was able to report strong upside to results recently driven by increased pricing discipline, easy comps, and likely confusion for the company's core profitability given the company's consistently inconsistent financial disclosure over the past two years. We recognize the existence of some positive trends here. Cablevision has been able to mitigate churn, while driving solid ARPU gains, and a recovery in margins is driving a return to more normalized EBITDA margins and strong FCF yields. However, a return to more normal levels of profitability does not change our opinion that the company will continue to be challenged by already industry leading levels of service penetration, a strong regional competitor, very high levels of debt, and a market that we believe over-estimates the company's strategic M&A value in a consolidation scenario. As a result, we are maintaining our Hold rating on shares of CVC.” Cablevision Systems Corporation closed on Tuesday at $18.20.