21st Century Fox has agreed to an improved offer from The Walt Disney Co. worth $38 a share, up from $28 a share which was agreed upon in December. This valuation is a $3 premium over Comcast’s $35 a share all-cash offer that they made just last week.
The new offer from Disney is valued at $71.3 billion and is a 50/50 stock and cash split according to The Wall Street Journal. In a press release, Fox called the Disney deal “superior” to the Comcast offer made last week.
Comcast is unlikely to beat this offer as their current $65 billion all-cash offer would load the company with debt, all while shares of Comcast are down 17% on the year. In addition, Disney has already gone through months of regulatory review since the original deal was announced in December, making Disney offer quicker for Fox shareholders.
In a conference call on Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger claimed Disney will not consider making a deal with Comcast to split up Fox’s assets saying “We have an agreement in place with [Fox] that precludes that,”.
This agreement of a new deal is a huge blow to Comcast. Fox management was meeting today to evaluate the Comcast offer, which Comcast claims was superior to Disney’s offer. Although, the value of Disney’s all-stock offer had increased since December because the value of Disney stock has risen since then.
In response to this new offer, Fox has postponed its July 10th “special meeting with shareholders” to a later date. This meeting was scheduled so that shareholders could vote on the proposed Disney-Fox merger.
Disney’s original deal with Fox in December was worth $52.4 billion and was an all-stock offer.
The 21st Century Fox acquisition timeline provides a history of this saga and has been updated with this story.
Can you update this post with where this was publicized? This is the only site that is saying that Fox has accepted the new bid.
I think the Shareholders at FOX know that owning stock in Disney will be more valuable in the long term than cash today from Comcast.
After that nasty, threatening letter from Comcast, I doubt many Fox shareholders are too thrilled with the idea of being taken over by the most hated company in America.
I can give them about $3.50
I’ll take you up on that offer.
Perhaps we can finally have all the characters appear in movies in the future!
Already blocked by the White House. Disney will never own Fox and will be broken up within a year. All the media empires are facing breakup and mergers and acquisitions will soon be a thing of the past.
I can see someone didn’t read the entire article… this deal does NOT include the FOX network, FS1, FS2, or Fox News.
In a separate bit of news, Bloomberg is reporting that US Justice department is close to clearing Disney’s purchase by Fox:
“Walt Disney Co is close to winning approval from U.S. antitrust regulators for its $71.3 billion bid for the bulk of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc’s media assets, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The Justice Department is set to approve the deal in as soon as two weeks, according to the report, which cited a person familiar with the matter.”
(Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disney-nears-u-nod-fox-174947437.html)
Bloomberg is fake news. The Justice Dept. has blocked Disney from purchasing Fox. Disney does not own Fox and they never will. Congress is already in the midst of passing a new antitrust bill that when signed into law, will break up Comcast, Viacom, Disney, and the other media conglomerates. When passed, this will mean Comcast will be forced to give up Universal while Disney will be forced to cut ties with Marvel and be forced to give Lucasfilm back to George, while shutting down all theme park attractions developed following said acquisitions.
Source?
You always talking too much Donald
Comcast would have been better for consumers. Disney is much more cheap, less visionary for the future. They care less about quality than immediate buck. Comcast still cares about guest and customer experience, while balancing with making a profit….like Disney USED to be.
Comcast has some of the worst customer service on the planet. The Taliban offers better service than they do.