Walt Disney buys Murdoch's Fox for $52bn
Quote:
Walt Disney has agreed to buy the bulk of 21st Century Fox's business for $52.4bn (£39bn), in a deal both companies said position them to compete in the rapidly changing media industry.
The purchase includes Fox's film and television studios, as well as its 39% stake in satellite broadcaster Sky.
Fox will form a news-focused company with its remaining assets.
The move is a sharp shift for 86-year-old Fox owner Rupert Murdoch after more than half a century of media expansion.
He said the break-up makes sense amid new threats from online advertising and competitors who are streaming entertainment into homes via the internet.
Fox shareholders, who include the Murdochs, will get a 25% stake in the larger Disney.
Disney will scoop up Fox's movie and television studios, regional sports network and international holdings, among other investments.
he firm believes this deal will give it the scale to compete, and expects to wring "at least" $2bn in cost-savings out of the new company to boot.
David Yelland, former editor of the Murdoch owned Sun newspaper in the UK, told the BBC the transaction puts Disney in pole position to compete with California's tech giants.
Fox is creating a smaller firm focused on news and major live sports events in the US.
It will hold onto its flagship Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Sports, Fox Television Stations Group, and sports cable networks FS1, FS2, Fox Deportes and Big Ten Network.
In the UK, Fox is in the midst of a bid to buy the part of the broadcaster Sky that it doesn't already own. That bid is being investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is due to publish provisional findings in January.
The BBC understands that the Disney deal will not alter that CMA investigation.
If the Sky purchase is approved, that deal would probably go through before the Disney purchase of Fox assets. So the whole of Sky would then be likely to transfer to Disney's ownership.
If not, then just the 39% of Sky currently in Fox's stable passes to Disney.
Rupert Murdoch said: "If things go wrong, the existing [Sky] shares go to Disney. It will be up to them to decide what to do."
Either way Sky's future will lie primarily in Disney's h
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