To thwart Comcast cash offer, Disney ups bid for Fox assets to $71.3 bn
New York: Walt Disney Co raised its bid for the bulk of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc's film and television assets to $71.3 billion on Wednesday, sweetening its deal with cash as it looks to upend Comcast Corp's $65 billion offer.
The new cash-or-stock deal may be attractive to Fox's largest shareholder, Rupert Murdoch, who owns 17% voting shares along with his family. The Murdochs face a large capital gains tax bill under Comcast's all-cash offer. Disney's previous offer was all stock.
Fox's board of directors said Disney's latest offer was "superior" to the proposal made by Comcast and would create "one of the greatest, most innovative companies in the world."
Disney and Comcast want to bulk up their own entertainment businesses with Fox's well-known TV shows and movie franchises, like the X-Men superheroes and The Simpsons, to better compete with fast-growing digital rivals Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc.
Fox's international media companies Star India and European pay TV company Sky TV Plc appeal to Disney and Comcast for overseas growth.
"These bids are a validation of Fox assets, which can be a big help to someone looking to bring their content business to a global scale," said Drew Weitz, director of equity research at Omaha, Nebraska-based Weitz Asset Management.
The $800 million Weitz Value Fund owned 550,000 Comcast Class A shares and 450,000 Twenty-First Century Fox Class A shares at the end of March.
Disney's revised offer of $38 a share, which would be split 50-50 in cash and stock, is $10 a share higher than Disney's first bid in December 2017. Comcast's last bid was for $35 a share in cash.
Disney will also take on about $13.8 billion of Fox's net debt, implying a total transaction value of about $85.1 billion.
The latest move by Disney raises the hurdle for Comcast, which has to decide whether it is feasible to counter with a higher bid. A Comcast representative declined to comment, but analysts and investors widely expect a counterbid from the largest US cable company and owner of NBC
Universal.
