The saga of the wide open west stock price finally reached its quiet conclusion on December 31, 2025. If you’ve been watching the ticker symbol WOW for the last year, you know it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. Actually, "rollercoaster" might be too generous. It was more like a long, slow climb followed by a sudden, flat plateau.
DigitalBridge and Crestview Partners officially closed their $1.5 billion acquisition of the company just as the ball dropped for the New Year. For shareholders, this means the end of the line. The stock no longer trades on the NYSE. It's gone. Private.
The Final Number: $5.20 Per Share
Honestly, the ending was pretty predictable once the definitive agreement was inked back in August 2025. The buyout price was set at $5.20 per share in cash. If you held onto your shares until the bitter end, that’s exactly what you got. No more, no less.
The market spent the last few months of 2025 hugging that $5.20 mark with almost robotic precision. On January 2, 2026, the last recorded trades showed the price sitting right at $5.20 with zero fluctuation. That’s what happens when a deal is a sure thing—the "arbitrage gap" disappears.
Why did it go private?
Well, WideOpenWest (often called WOW!) was in a tough spot. They were bleeding traditional cable TV subscribers—down over 40% year-over-year in some quarters. To survive, they had to pivot hard to fiber-to-the-home (FTTH). But building fiber is incredibly expensive. Doing it under the watchful, quarterly-obsessed eye of Wall Street is even harder.
Why the WideOpenWest Stock Price Needed a Reset
The broadband industry is changing fast. Giants like Comcast and Charter are everywhere, and the big wireless carriers are moving into home internet with 5G. For a mid-sized player like WOW!, the public markets were becoming a "liquidity trap."
- Massive Debt: As of mid-2025, the company was carrying over $1 billion in debt.
- Infrastructure Costs: They were on the hook for "Greenfield" expansions to reach hundreds of thousands of new homes.
- Earnings Misses: In Q3 2025, they reported a net loss of $35.7 million.
By taking the company private, DigitalBridge—a firm that basically specializes in digital infrastructure—can dump money into the network without worrying about a tanking wide open west stock price every time they miss an EPS estimate.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Buyout
A lot of folks thought the $5.20 offer was a lowball. In fact, several law firms (you’ve probably seen the "investigation" press releases from names like Johnson Fistel or Wohl & Fruchter) were looking into whether the board breached its fiduciary duty. They pointed to the fact that $5.20 was a far cry from the stock's historical highs.
But you've got to look at the "unaffected price." Before the initial buyout interest leaked in early 2024, the stock was languishing in the $3 range. The final deal represented a 63% premium over the price in August 2025. In the world of cable and telecom M&A, that’s actually a pretty decent exit.
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What Happens to Your Money Now?
If you still had shares in a brokerage account like Robinhood, Fidelity, or Schwab when the clock struck midnight on December 31, the process is mostly automatic. Your shares will be (or have already been) exchanged for cash.
- The Exchange: Your broker receives the $5.20 per share from the paying agent.
- The Payout: The cash is deposited into your settlement fund.
- The Tax Man: Since this was an all-cash deal, it’s a "taxable event." If you bought your shares at $10 years ago, you just locked in a capital loss. If you bought them at $3 during the 2024 dip, you’ve got a capital gain to report.
There's no option to "keep" the stock. It’s been delisted. You can’t trade it, and you don’t own a piece of the new private entity unless you were a major institutional holder like Crestview, which "rolled over" its 37% stake to stay in the game.
The Outlook for WOW! Under New Management
Frank van der Post took over as CEO on January 7, 2026. The new leadership team is clear about the mission: focus on fiber and stop worrying about the wide open west stock price.
They reached a milestone of 100,000 fiber homes passed late last year. Now, they're aiming for 400,000. It's a "build it or die" scenario. Because they're private, they can focus on long-term penetration rates instead of trying to make the balance sheet look pretty for the next earnings call.
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Wait.
Actually, it's kinda interesting—DigitalBridge itself is being acquired by SoftBank in a $4 billion deal expected to close later in 2026. So, in a weird way, WOW! is now part of a much larger, global tech machine.
Actionable Insights for Former Shareholders
- Check Your Statements: Ensure the $5.20 per share hit your account. If you held physical stock certificates (old school!), you'll need to contact the transfer agent, Computershare, to get your payout.
- Harvest the Loss: If you were one of the many investors who bought in during the 2021-2022 peak, use this forced sale to your advantage. Talk to a CPA about using those capital losses to offset gains elsewhere in your portfolio.
- Watch the Sector: The "take-private" trend isn't over. With WideOpenWest gone, keep an eye on other small-to-mid cap cable companies like Cable One (CABO) or Anet (ATUS). The same pressures that killed the WOW ticker are squeezing them too.
The story of the wide open west stock price is officially in the history books. It wasn't a "moon" shot, but for a company struggling with the death of cable TV, the $5.20 cash-out was a clean exit in a messy market.
Next Steps:
Confirm the cash settlement in your brokerage history and download your 2025 1099-B forms once they become available in February. These will be critical for documenting the gain or loss from the $5.20-per-share payout for your tax filings.