In the heated up battle between Comcast and Fox for Sky, Comcast officially unveils a £22 billion takeover bid.
Comcast’s offer is now official: the American group has announced that it is ready to pay £22b to acquire Sky in full or about £12.50 pounds for each share. Pay-TV executives, who had sent a letter of recommendation to their shareholders inviting them to accept the offer made by 21st Century Fox in December 2016 (£10.75 per share), now seem to welcome with open arms the new deal by Comcast and have therefore withdrawn the letter.
The battle between the telecommunications multinationals has officially begun. For many years Comcast has been thriving for room in the market, and the acquisition of Sky would undoubtedly mark a huge step forward. In 2011 the American group already bought Nbc Universal and now owns the American channels “Nbc”, “Cnbc” and “Msnbc”.
Fox has instead announced that they will evaluate whether or not to raise Comcast’s offer. By now Murdoch’s group can no longer make decisions alone, and it has to deal with the leaders of Disney, another giant in the market that has recently acquired part of the group’s shares. In addition, the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Ofcom are obstructing Fox group’s strategies: the institutions oppose the purchase of Sky by Rupert Murdoch. They claim that the media mogul, who owns already the News Corp, the holding company in charge of publishing “The Times”, “Sun”, and the “Sunday Times”, would achieve an overly dominant position in the market.
