People walk in front of the Time Warner Inc. headquarters building at Columbus Circle in New York
Time Warner's headquarters in New York. Reuters

Time Warner Cable has reached a deal to buy The Carlyle Group's cable operator Insight Communications Co. for around $3 billion in cash, a source familiar with the matter said Sunday.

Time Warner could announce the deal as soon as Monday morning, the source said.

Insight is the 10th-largest cable operator in the United States, Carlyle's Web site says. It provides cable television, high-speed Internet and telephone services to about 750,000 customers in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.

Insight representatives approached Time Warner Cable in recent weeks to discuss a deal after failing to reach agreement with other strategic and private equity bidders, the source said.

Time Warner had dropped out of an auction for Insight earlier this year, believing Carlyle's asking price, then around $4 billion, was too high, a source told Reuters in May.

Executives at Time Warner Cable have regularly said any acquisition targets would not be valued at a higher multiple than its own stock.

This is Time Warner Cable's largest acquisition since it was spun off from Time Warner Inc. in 2009. Earlier this year it paid $260 million for NewWave Communications, a smaller cable operator in the Midwest.

The deal could enable Time Warner Cable to reap programing cost savings, tax benefits as well as other operating synergies. Insight owns cable systems that are contiguous to Time Warner Cable's, including in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

Time Warner and Carlyle declined to comment. Insight could not be immediately reached for comment.

Shares of Time Warner Cable closed at $65.51 Friday.