The battle between Comcast and Fox for Sky ends in the auction. The British supervisory body Takeover Panel has defined the times and methods of the offer process, which will officially begin today at 16pm and end 24 hours later with al maximum three rounds of raises. At stake is complete control of Sky: Fox already has 39% of it and would like it all, but the European platform with 26 million subscribers is also liked by Comcast.
For now, Comcast's offer (£14,75 per share or £25,9 billion in total) is higher than the £14 offer from Fox for the 61% who do not yet own and which value Sky 24,5 billion, but Sky shares are currently traded at even higher prices on the London market: 15,82 pounds per share. Both groups will communicate their proposals by 6 am on the following Monday morning. At that point Sky shareholders will have a couple of weeks to decide which offer is the most attractive. Everything is decided on 11 October.
For Disney, conquering Sky means closing the circle around the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, even if eventually selling the 39% stake that Murdoch got as a dowry could represent an interesting income. On the other hand, for Comcast to conquer Sky with its 23 million subscribers would mean becoming the main pay-TV operator in the world – excluding the Chinese domestic market – with over 45 million subscribers. Thus conquering the European market (Sky is present in Italy, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Austria) to compete on equal terms with Netflix and Amazon. The last word at auction in the UK.
