Disney/FOX Acquisition Thread

[Paulio]

Now the Justice Department has sued to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger on the grounds it would harm our consumers more than it will help. I wonder how it might affect Comcast's buyout with 20th Century Fox.

 

[zg44]

Now the Justice Department has sued to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger on the grounds it would harm our consumers more than it will help. I wonder how it might affect Comcast's buyout with 20th Century Fox.

Fox will wait and see what happens in the AT&T lawsuit.

AT&T has legal precedents on its side and should win the case.

i.e. Comcast owns NBCUniversal, Time Warner used to own Time Warner Cable.

There's never been a general legal ban on content companies and distribution companies owning each other (only movie studios were banned from owning movie theaters because they shut out other movie studios).

Once AT&T/Time Warner suit is finished, there should be a bidding war for the Fox "for sale assets".

 

[quinnmac000]

Fox will wait and see what happens in the AT&T lawsuit.

AT&T has legal precedents on its side and should win the case.

i.e. Comcast owns NBCUniversal, Time Warner used to own Time Warner Cable.

There's never been a general legal ban on content companies and distribution companies owning each other (only movie studios were banned from owning movie theaters because they shut out other movie studios).

Once AT&T/Time Warner suit is finished, there should be a bidding war for the Fox "for sale assets".

AT&T will also bring up the Sinclair/Tribune deal as justification as to why they shouldn't have to divest. The DOJ is extremely stupid for even trying to go after this. The fact they are also trying to use AT&T previous complaint over Comcast/Universal deal to reject this one makes no sense as well.

 

[WAJAS]

I don’t like this and don’t think it should be allowed, but the precedent that the DoJ has already shown for trusts and oligopolies should allow this to go through.

 

[Paulio]

I don’t like this and don’t think it should be allowed, but the precedent that the DoJ has already shown for trusts and oligopolies should allow this to go through.

It wasn't like as if Comcast, Disney, or any other corporation approach 21st Century Fox for their assets. Fox wants to sell off its movie and TV assets, not the other way around. We don't know who's gonna win out the bid to buy them. But all we know is that Fox is selling off its assets so they could focus on the news and sports.

 

[Mad Dog]

DOJ is becoming very political, rewards and/or punishment driven. Any strange decisions coming from DOJ doesn't surprise me. Veteran prosecutors that don't toe the company line are forced to resign.

 

[Paulio]

Looks like Disney is about to be the first to acquire 21st Century Fox. Comcast really needs to speed things up.

Disney And Fox Have Reportedly Reentered Negotiations; An Official Announcement Could Be Imminent

 

[quinnmac000]

Looks like Disney is about to be the first to acquire 21st Century Fox. Comcast really needs to speed things up.

Disney And Fox Have Reportedly Reentered Negotiations; An Official Announcement Could Be Imminent

Or Comcast realized there are better things to acquire and partner with than 21st Century Fox.

 

[ThemeParks4Life]

I still don't get why Fox wants to sell off their entertainment division. It's not like they're losing money like Sony or Paramount.

 

[quinnmac000]

I still don't get why Fox wants to sell off their entertainment division. It's not like they're losing money like Sony or Paramount.

Not getting into politics past this but Rupert Murdoch hates the liberal values that the entertainment division pushes forward while the News/Sports mainly push forwards things values he personally agrees with. It creates an environment not conductive to synergy like Universal and Disney and a disjointed organization.

 

[AlexanderMBush]

Looks like Disney is about to be the first to acquire 21st Century Fox. Comcast really needs to speed things up.

Disney And Fox Have Reportedly Reentered Negotiations; An Official Announcement Could Be Imminent

:frustrated"

Why do I get the sense that Alien is going to become a dead franchise then?

 

[belloq87]

I really hope a sale - to either Disney or Comcast - does not come to pass. It would be bad for filmmakers, who will have one less avenue to pursue to get a movie made, and it would be bad for film fans in general; a studio only has so many viable spots into which they can slot movie releases in a given year, and the end result of a Disney or Comcast purchase would be that fewer movies get made and released each year.

 

[quinnmac000]

I really hope a sale - to either Disney or Comcast - does not come to pass. It would be bad for filmmakers, who will have one less avenue to pursue to get a movie made, and it would be bad for film fans in general; a studio only has so many viable spots into which they can slot movie releases in a given year, and the end result of a Disney or Comcast purchase would be that fewer movies get made and released each year.

I disagree on the movie front since Touchstone hasn't released a movie in months and Fox would give Disney an adult studio since all the other deals are dead, however I would point out in animation/television if Disney does get it, it can inflate their animation empire to almost monopoly status which may be a huge issue when it comes down to it.

As for Comcast, I think the issue will be Fox Searchlight and Focus pretty much taking over 50% of the independent/arthouse film studios being the biggest issue as well.

The main reason Disney wants this is for the television area where FOX is succeeding and Disney is failing hard recently especially with the loss of Shonda recently to Netflix.

 

[Paulio]

Or Comcast realized there are better things to acquire and partner with than 21st Century Fox.

I can't think of any company Comcast wants to acquire that are better to benefit them financially as much as Disney buying up Marvel and Comcast buying up DWA. Nintendo is the only choice since it has a connection with Universal in regards to the theme parks, but Japanese law generally prohibits non-Japanese companies from acquiring Japanese corporations. That's about it. Fox has a lot of varieties Comcast/Universal really needs to boost its cable entertainment ratings and especially the theme park industry, given the fact Universal theme parks already have the Springfield Area and uses AHS for HHN. Also, Comcast doesn't generally release as much popular franchise movies as Disney did, so out of the two, it might not be so bad.

I really hope a sale - to either Disney or Comcast - does not come to pass. It would be bad for filmmakers, who will have one less avenue to pursue to get a movie made, and it would be bad for film fans in general; a studio only has so many viable spots into which they can slot movie releases in a given year, and the end result of a Disney or Comcast purchase would be that fewer movies get made and released each year.

Entertainment wise, if I have a choice between Disney and Comcast, I much prefer Comcast having it. DWA isn't really enough for Comcast and Universal doesn't have as much variety lately as Fox outside of Jason Bourne, Fast and Furious, and Jurassic World franchises. Disney owning every other Fox franchise will only probably hurt the film industry as a whole given its recent behavior towards local theaters and the LA times regarding Star Wars and its crooked politics in Anaheim, after it already acquired Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, many which have a lot of valuable IPs. It's just too much for Disney and it might threaten competition and harm small businesses and many of them would have a hard time competing with the great Giant.

 

[quinnmac000]

I can't think of any company Comcast wants to acquire that are better to benefit them financially as much as Disney buying up Marvel and Comcast buying up DWA. Nintendo is the only choice since it has a connection with Universal in regards to the theme parks, but Japanese law generally prohibits non-Japanese companies from acquiring Japanese corporations. That's about it. Fox has a lot of varieties Comcast/Universal really needs to boost its cable entertainment ratings and especially the theme park industry, given the fact Universal theme parks already have the Springfield Area and uses AHS for HHN. Also, Comcast doesn't generally release as much popular franchise movies as Disney did, so out of the two, it might not be so bad.

Comcast cable shows in general are fine....its their international sales of shows that are hurting. That currently is their biggest downfall.

False, as of 2011, around 28% of Japanese corporations were partially and fully owned by foreign entities. Its also how Comcast bought up Geneon Entertainment which was a Japanese company.

Comcast wants to buy way more East Asian companies hints the huge increase in M&A based jobs in Tokyo as well as more content managers for Asia in particular in additional to NBCUniversal producing korean television shows

If Universal was to buy any Japanese companies, it would be something like Level 5 gaming (Yokai Watch and the growingly popular tv show internationally, Professor Layton, some other popular games), Studio Ghibli (Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away), Sanrio (Hello Kitty), Kodasha (Fairy Tail, Seven Deadly Sins) or Shueisha (Shonen Jump: Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, etc) where they can utilize their current partnerships and appearances in the parks, their already in place media presence, as well as way fewer anti-trust issues.

There is also interest again in Comcast for ITV (Black Mirror, Misfits and other UK based shows).

The biggest thing is whoever buys Fox get Fox's share of Hulu which then gives them majority control on Hulu.

 

[zg44]

I still don't get why Fox wants to sell off their entertainment division. It's not like they're losing money like Sony or Paramount.

It's because those assets are currently devalued in the market place. You really need scale to compete with Netflix or Disney in the movie/tv production space. Fox doesn't have scale like those others do.

Netflix will produce 100 movies a year soon; Netflix will purchase $8+ billion in tv shows and movies next year alone.

Amazon and Apple are heading towards those kinds of numbers. Both Amazon and Apple are each projected to be spending multiple billions on content production by 2020.

Disney has Disney Live Action, Disney Animation, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel Studios pumping out at least $2 billion in domestic box office and $5 billion in international box office every year.

If you're Fox, those are extremely powerful opponents that they don't have the scale to compete with...

If you look at Fox's stock price, their stock price basically values the entertainment assets as nearly worthless. Almost all of the value in Fox's stock price comes from Fox broadcast, Fox News, and Fox Sports. Why? Because those are Fox's businesses which are defended from competition. Fox's broadcast channel has powerful sports deals (as does Fox Sports), and Fox News has millions of loyal viewers. Those are their strongest, high growth assets.

So think about it, if you're Fox, do you want to get your $20+ billion in value for those slow growth, less competitive assets now, while preventing them from weighing down the rest of the company? This happens in a lot of industries where there's a slow growth division of a company attached to a larger faster growth division.

Typically, the slow growth division gets chopped off and merged with a more sensible partner. Here's an example: United Technologies (a manufacturing/engineering conglomerate) used to own an attack helicopter division, but it sold it recently to Lockheed Martin (a pure defense corporation).

 

[Parkscope Joe]

It’s almost like the two leaks were done by Fox to get Disney to come back to the table or something.

 

[Legacy]

Comcast buying Studio Ghibli would, legitimately, be a bigger coup than Disney buying Fox Production.

 

[Paulio]

Comcast cable shows in general are fine....its their international sales of shows that are hurting. That currently is their biggest downfall.

False, as of 2011, around 28% of Japanese corporations were partially and fully owned by foreign entities. Its also how Comcast bought up Geneon Entertainment which was a Japanese company.

Comcast wants to buy way more East Asian companies hints the huge increase in M&A based jobs in Tokyo as well as more content managers for Asia in particular in additional to NBCUniversal producing korean television shows

If Universal was to buy any Japanese companies, it would be something like Level 5 gaming (Yokai Watch and the growingly popular tv show internationally, Professor Layton, some other popular games), Studio Ghibli (Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away), Sanrio (Hello Kitty), Kodasha (Fairy Tail, Seven Deadly Sins) or Shueisha (Shonen Jump: Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, etc) where they can utilize their current partnerships and appearances in the parks, their already in place media presence, as well as way fewer anti-trust issues.

There is also interest again in Comcast for ITV (Black Mirror, Misfits and other UK based shows).

The biggest thing is whoever buys Fox get Fox's share of Hulu which then gives them majority control on Hulu.

My mistake then. I presume the law doesn't prohibit foreign investors from acquiring Japanese companies, though ownership is restricted in the media sector and businesses deemed to be of strategic interest. That leaves the vast majority of private businesses potentially open to acquisition by foreign investors. That foreign investors have such difficulty taking over Japanese businesses is due to cultural factors that work against hostile takeovers as well as anti-competitive practices of Japanese companies (such as forming keiretsus). https://www.export.gov/article?id=Japan-openness-to-foreign-investment

It’s almost like the two leaks were done by Fox to get Disney to come back to the table or something.

I doubt it, it's just reporting that the Disney and Fox talk is back on track. Don't know where Comcast stand right now because it seems imminent that they're about the lose the FOX deal to the Mouse.....and it would be twice in a row that Universal would pay money to a property owned by Disney (the first being Marvel).

 

[AlexanderMBush]

Variety is picking up the news now, with it even saying that both Comcast and Disney are looking to make deals with Fox.

Disney is Back in the Hunt for Parts of 21st Century Fox – Variety