The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
21st Century Fox Inc accepted a sweetened, $71.3 billion bid from Walt Disney Co for its entertainment assets, outbidding Comcast Corp in a battle for one of the media industry’s biggest prizes.
The $38-a-share price is about $10 a share higher than what Disney offered in December — and $3 above Comcast’s bid from last week. The new agreement also offers more flexibility and other enhancements than the Comcast offer, Fox said on Wednesday.
At stake is a trove of media properties, ranging from “The Simpsons†to “X-Men,†that may help fend off the threat from Netflix Inc and other stream-ing upstarts. Both Disney and Comcast are looking to use
the Fox assets to bolster their content and expand overseas.
Disney’s latest offer is a “very aggressive move†by Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger and may make it difficult for Comcast to respond, said Bloom-berg Intelligence analyst Paul Sweeney. Comcast’s current bid was already poised to load the company up with debt, and its shares have fallen 18 percent this year.
“Comcast’s balance sheet may preclude it from bidding much higher,†Sweeney said. “Further hampering Comcast’s ability to respond is its position that it does not want to use its stock in a deal at these low levels.â€
The tussle follows AT&T Inc’s victory over the US Justice Department in its antitrust battle to take over Time Warner Inc. That outcome is expected to spur a wave of media consolidation, emboldening companies to get more aggressive with deals.
The Disney-Comcast contest will determine who controls much of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, including Fox’s movie and TV studios, television networks such as FX, and multichannel providers like Star India and Sky Plc.
But the two sides aren’t vying for all of Fox. Part of the business will be used to create an entity called “New Fox,†which will include the highly lucrative Fox News, the sports channels FS1 and FS2, and the Fox broadcasting channel.
That operation will be run by Lachlan Murdoch and focus on domestic television, news and sports.