21st Century Fox announces $14.8 bn deal to take over Sky

PanARMENIAN.Net - Trying once again to strengthen control of its media empire on both sides of the Atlantic, the Murdoch family’s 21st Century Fox Inc. on Thursday, December 15 formally submitted a roughly $14 billion offer to buy the 61% of British pay-TV giant Sky PLC it doesn’t already own, The Wall Street Journal said.

Fox offered £10.75 ($13.41) a share for the Sky stake, valuing the whole of Sky around $23 billion.

The offer price is unchanged from the deal’s previously disclosed terms, but Fox said it would pursue the tie-up through a so-called scheme of arrangement rather than as a straightforward tender offer.

A scheme of arrangement allows the acquiring company to more quickly acquire 100% of the target company but could be harder to pull off because Fox’s stake will be excluded from voting on the transaction. By contrast, a tender offer could have allowed Fox to obtain majority control of Sky more quickly but might have delayed its path to 100% ownership, meaning Fox would have had to deal with minority shareholders for some time.

The two companies, which announced a tentative agreement on Dec. 9, now must withstand a gauntlet of scrutiny from politicians, regulators and minority shareholders to seal the deal.

Sky shareholders didn’t immediately embrace the formal offer on Thursday, with shares down 1.2% at £9.72 in afternoon London trading. The company’s stock soared when deal talks were first disclosed but have remained well short of the offer price.