In a follow up to an earlier post on this topic, the bidding war between Disney and Comcast over the assets of 21st Century Fox entered round 2 on Wednesday.
Disney announced that they have increased their bid to Fox up to $71.3 billion with the ratios being half cash/half stock instead of an all cash bid. This represents an increase from the $31.00 per share offer Disney originally made for Fox to reflect a new valuation of about $38.00 per share.
The new Disney bid is also 10% higher than the bid that Comcast made recently. The financial news media has been buzzing about this activity all day in the most recent in a long series of events involving this potentially huge acquisition.
However, the perspective that is intriguing is the seemingly increasingly conflicted viewpoints from those in the industry about what Comcast should do and how they should respond. Some anticipate a new bid from Comcast, a counter punch to Disney which is rumored to be around $41.00 per share.
Then, there are others who maintain that Comcast should let it go, that they should walk away and let Disney acquire Fox. The rationale being that it is going to become an expensive and exhaustive process with Disney that will leave Comcast over-leveraged. The ultimate value of Fox will be offset by the damage it will do to Comcast in both the short-term and long-term through the process they would take to obtain the Fox content/assets.
In my perspective I can see both sides of the argument and can understand why Comcast could push even further into the bidding war, or why they could ultimately surrender their position. The question of value will certainly come up in the next week or so while this plays out: What is the value of Fox and what it can provide my business?
The answer to that question looms largely over Comcast HQ in Philadelphia today. The content that Fox holds is certainly intriguing, and content is the new currency in the media industry, as it has been explained on Frank’s Forum in the past.
Moreover, Disney has deep pockets and is a larger entity than Comcast. The impetus for Disney is all of the ways they can maximize new streams of revenue through the rights to the content that Fox currently holds. Disney is the best in the industry at taking characters and marketing/merchandising them to their maximum potential.
In addition, Disney can afford a bidding war here for Fox, where Comcast could be left with some damage from a war with Disney. Disney, as reported by CNBC, also needs the content for their new streaming app service. Comcast has content in the pipeline and has video on demand services for their customers.
The anti-trust regulations are another potential trouble spot for Comcast in this bid. My most recent work detailed the AT&T merger with Time Warner and the differences between horizontal and vertical mergers.
The U.S. federal regulators according to Bloomberg News are likely to approve the Disney bid for Fox. The rationale, as I have written previously, is because they view Disney as a content company that has no stake in telecommunications/cable TV services or broadcast television.
Conversely, the regulators view Comcast as a horizontal threat to create a monopoly because their core business is telecommunications and cable/broadcast television service. That perception is a big issue for Comcast in this bidding war.
In the end, some industry people have predicted that this bidding war will go another round with Disney winning the bid at $45.00 per share valuation of Fox. The other faction believes that this will not go another round, that either Comcast will announce that they have quit, or Fox will state that the Disney bid on the table is acceptable to their shareholders.
The fact will remain that it looks like Disney will get even larger as a result of this deal. They will have a treasure trove of new content and could have tremendous influence on how we, as consumers, gain access to content. The implications of this merger will have a profound impact on the media landscape in the future.
Comcast has the next move, and time will tell how “conflicted” they are over this potential acquisition.