JPMorgan: We Like EMC-Virtustream, Expect 'Spending Pause' After Charter-Time Warner Cable

In a report published Wednesday, JPMorgan analysts maintained a Neutral rating on

. EMC announced its plans to acquire Virtustream, an enterprise grade IAAS provider, for $1.2bn in an all-cash deal. The acquisition is expected to close in Q315. The acquisition is unlikely to have any material impact this year, and is expected to be accretive to revenue and EPS in 2016. "We generally like the deal as it provides EMC with Cloud provisioning software which can be sold to corporates deploying private cloud infrastructure. This same software should also provide a seamless bridge to public cloud workload deployment for internal users," the analysts wrote.

is set to acquire

in a deal that values the latter at $195 per share. "Any merger like this typically creates a spending pause as the two companies re-plan networks post merger," the analysts said, while adding that the pause in this case "is likely to be smaller than" that in the deal between

and Time Warner Cable, in view of the "relatively small size." The price target for Charter Communications has been raised from $194 to $198.