Following the bidding war for Sky that was won by Comcast on Saturday for £30bn, 21st Century Fox will sell its 39% stake in Sky to Comcast. Disney said it had agreed to Fox’s decision to sell the 39% Sky stake.
Fox has now decided to accept Comcast’s £17.28 a share offer, which values the Sky stake at £11.6bn. Fox had sought control of Sky itself.
However, it lost out after bidding just £15.67 a share in the auction conducted by the UK Takeover Panel – a rare event in UK deal-making.
Earlier this year, Fox had seemed likely to win control of the 61% of Sky it did not already own until Comcast stepped in with a rival bid.
Disney said the sale, along with offloading regional networks in the US belonging to Fox Sports, would cut debt and help boost investment in its streaming service due to launch late next year.
Sky’s Chief Executive Jeremy Darroch said: “Nearly 30 years ago Rupert Murdoch took a risk to launch Sky and in the process changed the way we watch television forever.
“With [21st Century Fox] announcing its intention to sell its shares to Comcast, we close one chapter while simultaneously opening another.”
It will be interesting to see if Disney try another avenue, beyond their new streaming service set to launch towards the end of 2019, in order to gain more traction in Europe.
