Bidding war between the media giants
In its latest bid to spoil the Walt Disney’s $52.4bn deal, US media conglomerate Comcast has now offered $65bn in cash to lure 21st Century Fox.
Comcast was encouraged to move ahead with this offer — a 20 per cent higher offer than the rival — by “yesterday’s decision in the AT&T/Time Warner case,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts wrote in a letter to the Fox board of directors and the Murdoch family.
Comcast is “highly confident that our proposed transaction will obtain all necessary regulatory approvals in a timely manner and that our transaction is as or more likely to receive regulatory approval than the Disney transaction,” Roberts wrote.
According to reports, Comcast has offered $35 per Fox share for the media assets, compared with Disney’s stock offer, at $29.54 a share when they struck the deal on December 14.
Comcast also offered a $2.5bn reverse termination fee if the deal did not go through, the same as Disney. It also offered to pay Fox’s $1.525bn breakup fee owed Disney, if Fox went with Comcast.
Fox in a statement said it had received the proposal and would review it.
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