Comcast outbids Fox with $40 bn winning offer to take over Sky
LONDON: Comcast beat Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox in the battle for Sky on Saturday after offering £30.6 billion ($40 billion) in a dramatic auction to decide the fate of the pay-television group.
The US cable giant bid £17.28 a share for control of London-listed Sky, bettering a £15.67 a share offer by Fox, Britain’s Takeover Panel said.
Buying Sky will make Philadelphia-based Comcast, which owns the NBC network and Universal Pictures, the world’s largest pay-TV operator with around 52 million customers.
Chairman and chief executive Brian Roberts has had his eye on Sky as a way to help counter declines in subscribers for traditional cable TV in its core US market as viewers switch to video-ondemand services like Netflix and Amazon.
“This is a great day for Comcast,” he said. “This acquisition will allow us to quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase our customer base and expand internationally.”
Comcast’s knock-out offer thwarted Murdoch’s long-held ambition to win control of Sky, and is also a setback for US entertainment giant Walt Disney which would have likely been its ultimate owner. Disney has agreed a separate $71 billion deal to buy most of Fox’s film and TV assets, including its existing 39% stake in Sky, and would have taken full ownership after a successful Fox takeover.
Comcast’s final offer was a jump on its bid going into the auction of £14.75, and compares with Sky’s closing price of £15.85 on Friday. Comcast believed it needed to deliver a knock-out blow given that Fox’s existing stake in Sky gave it a chance of victory if it was a close second to Comcast, two sources said.