HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER

Disney tables £39bn bid for 21st Century Fox Britain’s Sky will fall into US hands Bankers to pocket £130m in deal fees

DISNEY has made a £39bn blockbuster bid to buy almost all of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox empire.

In the biggest tie-up in Tinseltown for almost a century, Disney will take control of all of Fox’s film franchises from Avatar to the X-Men, as well as TV networks.

Disney will also be given Fox’s stake in Sky, which has 23m European viewers – and includes the Sky News channel.

Murdoch, meanwhile, will create a new Fox company and keep his US TV news and sport networks, which are watched by at least 100m households and play host to some of the world’s biggest sporting spectacles, including American football’s Super Bowl.

The deal will see Fox investors get a 25pc stake in Disney and hold shares in the as yet unnamed new Fox company. Disney will also take on £10.2bn of Fox debt. The takeover is valued at £49.3bn and is expected to lead to cost savings of £1.49bn.

Shareholders in 21st Century Fox will receive 0.2745 Disney shares for each Fox share. And it will prompt a spectacular payday for bankers involved, with an estimated £130m shared largely between Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

The takeover immediately prompted speculation that James Murdoch would eventually become the chief executive of Disney.

The 45-year-old chief executive of 21st Century Fox will take a lead role in the merger.

But Disney stressed that Bob Iger would remain chairman and chief executive until 2021 and see through the deal. Iger, 66, said: ‘James and I will be talking over the next couple of months.

‘He will be integral to the integration process. He and I will be discussing whether there is a role for him, or not, at our company.’ Disney became the frontrunner to secure the Fox assets, after rival Comcast pulled out of the race on Monday.

The deal is being seen as an effort to refashion two old media empires to counter the threat from online rivals. Internet TV service Netflix now has more than 50m US subscribers, but Disney has pledged to pull its movies off Netflix in 2019 as it launches a streaming service of its own.

This deal will give it top Fox shows including The Simpsons and Modern Family, as well as a back catalogue of box office hits.

Analyst Paul Verna of eMarketer said: ‘The more desirable content they have, the better they will be able to compete, in terms of trying to sell a subscription at a time there’s so much competition for subscription-based services.’

Disney will also get Fox’s 39pc stake in Sky. Fox is trying to buy the rest of the British TV network but is in a battle with regulators over fears it will give the Murdochs too much influence over UK media. Now Fox’s stake will pass to Disney which will continue with the takeover. Even if the bid fails, Disney will keep the stake in Sky – including Sky News.

The Competition and Markets Authority is due to announce a decision in mid- January, and experts believe that it is more likely to support the purchase because the ultimate owner will no longer be Fox.

Although the tie-up could be seen as an admission by the Murdochs that empire-building days are over, it opens up the possibility that the family has designs on Disney itself. The sale gives them a stake in Disney of around 5pc.

James Murdoch has long been seen as his father’s successor. If discussions go well, he could one day run Disney too.