Comcast Corp on Wednesday offered US$65 billion to lure Twenty-First Century Fox Inc away from a merger with Walt Disney Co, saying its all-cash bid was about 19 percent higher and launching the first salvo in what could be a bidding war between two of the largest US media companies.
Comcast chief executive officer Brian Roberts said he is confident regulators would allow a Comcast-Fox deal after AT&T Inc’s court victory on Tuesday, which allowed it to buy Time Warner Inc for US$85 billion.
Some analysts see some difficulties for Comcast-Fox, which would add Fox’s movie and television studios to Comcast’s NBC Universal, but Roberts said in a letter to Fox that he would offer the same conditions as Disney and promised to fight for the deal in court if necessary.
Photo: AFP
Comcast is expected to lead a wave of traditional media companies trying to combine distribution and production to compete with Netflix Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google.
The younger firms produce content, sell it online directly to consumers and often offer lucrative targeted advertising.
Comcast in a statement outlined an offer that was similar to Disney’s, including a commitment to the same divestitures. It said that it would agree to litigate any action taken by the US Department of Justice to block the deal.
Comcast offered US$35 per Fox share for the media assets, compared with Disney’s stock offer, worth US$29.18 per share at the close of trade on Wednesday.
Comcast offered a US$2.5 billion reverse termination fee if the deal did not go through, the same as Disney. It also offered to pay Fox’s US$1.525 billion breakup fee owed to Disney, if Fox went with Comcast.
Comcast said it intends to pursue its US$30 billion acquisition of Sky PLC in parallel with its Fox bid. Comcast bid for Sky in April, after Fox’s bid for the remainder of the European pay-TV group it did not already own was delayed by regulators.
Justice Department lawyers who tried to stop AT&T’s US$85 billion deal expect consumers will lose out as bigger companies raise prices, and some lawyers see that as a concern in a Comcast-Fox deal, which would put two movie studios and two major television brands under one roof.
“One cannot ignore the fact that there’s less independent content to go around,” after the AT&T deal, said Henry Su, an antitrust expert with Constantine Cannon LLP.
Comcast might have a tough time winning over Fox’s largest shareholder, Rupert Murdoch’s family. They own a 17 percent stake and would face a multibillion dollar capital gains tax bill if he accepts an all-cash offer from Comcast, tax experts have said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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