{"id":112973,"date":"2018-02-27T09:54:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T09:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=112973"},"modified":"2018-02-27T09:54:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T09:54:38","slug":"comcast-plans-to-dethrone-the-murdochs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/comcast-plans-to-dethrone-the-murdochs\/","title":{"rendered":"Comcast plans to dethrone the Murdochs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comcast has announced a bid for Sky, rivalling the existing 21st Century Fox bid and threatening to dramatically reduce the Murdoch\u2019s influence on the UK media landscape.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fox already owns 39% of Sky and has been attempting to take full control since December 2016. This process has hit several snags, including regulatory issues with the UK\u2019s Competition and Markets Authority, which is concerned about the level of influence the Murdoch family has in the UK.<\/p>\n

The recent deal between Fox and Disney, where the latter has agreed to acquire Fox\u2019s entertainment assets \u2013 including Sky \u2013 for $66bn, has cause further confusion over the Sky takeover. It was this deal that led to Comcast\u2019s bid; the American communications giant has been looking at acquiring leftover Fox assets since the Disney deal was agreed.<\/p>\n

Comcast\u2019s bid for Sky, of \u00a312.50 cash for each share, is a significant 16% premium over Fox\u2019s bid.<\/p>\n

Comcast, which is a massive player in the US and owns NBCUniversal and DreamWorks Animation, is looking to use the acquisition of Sky to push for growth in Europe. Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, said he was confident the offer would be cleared by regulators.<\/p>\n

While he has made it clear that he would be willing to co-own Sky with either Fox or Disney \u2013 assuming Comcast had a majority stake \u2013 Roberts would rather complete ownership. He said: \u2018We would like to own the whole of Sky and we will be looking to acquire over 50% of the Sky shares\u2019.<\/p>\n

The BBC reports<\/a> that analysts from Liberum have said there is a \u2018very good chance\u2019 that Comcast\u2019s bid would succeed: \u2018We expect this deal to go through as we do not think Fox (or Disney, who are acquiring the Sky assets as part of their purchase of various Fox assets) will want to get into a bidding war, especially given the complications surrounding Sky News.\u2019<\/p>\n

They also suggest it would appeal to Sky shareholders as it\u2019s a higher bid and comes with less regulatory risk. Shares in Sky have already jumped 19% and are now priced at over \u00a313 each.<\/p>\n

A deal of this magnitude takes time to be approved by all stakeholders, including shareholders and regulatory bodies. But with the UK Government focused on global deals after Brexit, turning away an American bid (that doesn\u2019t present the same issues as Fox’s) may not be possible in the current political climate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comcast has announced a bid for Sky, rivalling the existing 21st Century Fox bid and threatening to dramatically reduce the Murdoch\u2019s influence on the UK media landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":112976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,350,3729],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112973"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112978,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112973\/revisions\/112978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}