In December of 2017, The Walt Disney Company announced they had entered into an agreement to acquire Twenty-First Century Fox for $52.4 billion in stock. This deal became muddled when the Comcast Corporation tried to undermine the deal by placing a $65 billion all-cash bid on the table. This set off a bidding war between the two companies. Disney eventually raised their bid to $71 billion in cash and stock, which seems to have sealed the deal.
Today Comcast stated that they no longer “intend to pursue further the acquisition of the Twenty-First Century Fox assets and, instead, will focus on our recommended offer for Sky.”
The CEO of Comcast Brian L. Roberts also stated, “I’d like to congratulate Bob Iger and the team at Disney and commend the Murdoch family and Fox for creating such a desirable and respected company.”
While the battle over Twenty-First Century Fox may be ending, the fight between Disney and Comcast isn’t over just yet. Comcast made it very clear that they would not be backing down from trying to acquire Twenty-First Century Fox’s 39 percent of the European broadcasting network Sky.
Credit: Comcast
