21st Century Fox to buy Sky?

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › 21st Century Fox to buy Sky?

Geektastic

18009 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 8465

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#206122 10-Dec-2016 16:29

Not sure if this would affect Sky NZ/Australia but I guess so.

"The American media group 21st Century Fox has struck a deal to buy Sky, five years after abandoning an £8 billion attempt for the broadcaster after the phone-hacking scandal.

The conglomerate, which is the leading shareholder in Sky with a 39 per cent stake, said that it would buy the rest of the shares it did not already own for £10.75 a share in cash, less any future dividends.

The deal values the British broadcaster at close to £18.5 billion. A group of independent Sky directors said yesterday that they were willing to recommend the offer to shareholders as long as other “material terms” were negotiated satisfactorily."

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 545

#1685770 10-Dec-2016 16:45

Does not effect Australia or NZ. Sky plc (being UK, Italy and Germany) is completely distinct in all aspects (ownership, content, technology providers) to Foxtel (owned by Telstra and News) and SkyNZ (owned by all its shareholders - none significant).

It does make an interesting aspect given 21CF had a crack previously - and are paying an EV/EBITDA multiple in excess of 9x (cf Foxtel touted as valued at 7.5x and Sky NZ which Grant Samuel estimated fair value at between 6.8x and 7.4x).

Bear in mind that Australia, UK, Germany and Italy all have anti-siphoning legisation in place, have the same competitive risks with OTT providers, have the same pay-tv industry headwinds and yet Grant Samuel cant see its way of a paper bag in terms of "independent" valuation.

Murdoch has shown plenty of savvy investment behaviour (both buying and selling) in the past. Some people may not like the guy but you probably wouldnt bet against him.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

Geektastic

18009 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 8465

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1685813 10-Dec-2016 18:34

I certainly would not bet against him!

I wonder if they will then move later to hoover up the rest of the Sky brand?

Might improve content if they did!

ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 545

#1685855 10-Dec-2016 19:03

Geektastic:

I certainly would not bet against him!

I wonder if they will then move later to hoover up the rest of the Sky brand?

Might improve content if they did!

Unlikely. Murdoch sold out of Sky NZ a while ago. Has held ~35% of Sky plc forever. I imagine would like to own all of Foxtel but getting that other 50% out of Telstra would be tricky (Telstra somewhat enamored with the idea of having some skin in the content game - previous Telco part owners in Sky would still be ruing a selldown, hence a build rather than buy approach (whatever thats been worth)).

As to improving content - have you looked at the Sky plc content portfolio? Replace over-expensive rugby with over-expensive EPL and they dont look too dissimilar. Sky plc tends to aggressively hit technology adoption (4K, Sky Q etc) but its suite of content isnt that much better. And its consumer offerings (in terms of pricing and bundling) are equally or less attractive.

Going beyond that in terms of content would suggest that there are benefits from SkyNZ merging with Foxtel or Sky plc etc. Given the (still) geographical nature of content agreements it would be hard to see some (or any) leverage to get better or broader content agreements. I'm still trying to work out what benefit 21st Century gets from owning Sky plc other than access to some great cashflows that are going to persist for longer than most investor horizons anticipate.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"