Some Wall Street analysts believe that a spinoff of NBCUniversal by parent company Comcast could increase the likelihood of a merger on the cable side, while increasing deal multiples on the media side, perhaps as much as 10 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Telecommunications giant Comcast announced on Monday that it would separate NBCUniversal and Sky from its cable and wireless division. The company was trading at a 12-year low before the news broke. Don Bilson, head of event-driven research at Gordon Haskett Research Advisors, said the cable business could be created in a merger with cable company Charter Communications, and the media business could become more similar to Disney. “As a separate entity, the cable business will be combined with CHTR, leaving NBCU similar to Disney, trading at 10x EBITDA,” Bilson said in a letter to clients on Monday. “Whether it can attract suitors who are willing to pay much more than that, as Warner Bros. has been able to do, is a matter for conversation.”SkepticsOther analysts see no logic in the merger on the cable side of the breakup. “We are not considering a deal between Netflix and NBCU,” MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett said in a note to clients on Monday. “And a Comcast-Charter deal is inconceivable,” he added, saying the overhead savings from the merger would be “minimal.” Comcast has struggled for years, even after announcing earlier this year that it planned to spin off some of its media assets, including CNBC, MS NOW and USA Network, into Versant. Comcast has fallen more than 9% since the Versant spinoff was completed in January, and the stock has fallen more than 35% since the spinoff was announced in November 2024. CMCSA 5Y Mountain Comcast Stock Over the Past 5 Years Comcast’s stock price fell below 5 times its price-to-earnings ratio in October 2025, which was a defining moment for investors. According to FactSet data, the company’s current forward price-to-earnings ratio is 6.87. “Much of the sense of ‘stuckness’ surrounding CMCSA in recent years reflects a sense that the conglomerate structure limits strategic flexibility,” Evercore ISI cable and communications analyst Kutugan Maral said in a letter to clients on Monday, calling recent valuations of less than five times earnings “nonsense.” “In our view, valuations have become irrelevant in many respects, with the stock trading at 4.3x EV/EBITDA and 5.7x price-to-free cash flow based on our 2027 estimates. We believe this multiple reflects investors’ unease with the backdrop of broadband competition and their reluctance to take on a story without a strategic path forward,” Maral wrote. As a result, other Wall Street analysts are now predicting a valuation boost from the NBCUniversal spinoff. Evercore ISI has a price target of $36 on Comcast. This is based on estimated 2027 valuations of 5.5x EV/EBITDA and 8.8x P/FCF. Benchmark Equity Research targets Comcast’s 2026 EBITDA forward multiple of 6.5x and 2027 forward multiple of 6.2x. “We do not expect any significant synergies from the new deal, other than perhaps a modest increase in corporate expenses for the two public entities,” Benchmark’s Matthew Harrigan wrote on Monday. He has a price target of $44 on Comcast. Disclosure: Versant Media is the parent company of CNBC.
