Comcast emerged triumphant in its effort to take over Sky PLC (Europe’s largest pay TV provider) after outbidding Twenty-First Century Fox (on behalf of Disney), by +/- $3.6 billion, in a rare settlement auction; Comcast’s bid valued the company at +/- $39 billion. Disney, which will take over most of Fox’s film and TV assets, subsequently announced it would sell Comcast Fox’s existing 39% stake in Sky at the auction-winning bid price of $22.54/share. The addition of Sky expands Comcast’s distribution outside of the U.S. (to UK, Ireland, Germany Austria, Italy, Spain and Switzerland) and increases their global footprint to +/- 53 million customers; existing infrastructure that puts the company in position to effectively compete with Netflix (+/- 29 million subscribers across Europe in 2017) and Amazon outside of North America.
Howie Long-Short: Selling its 39% stake in Sky PLC (SKYAY) at $22.54/share ($15.6 billion) must be considered a win for DIS considering it valued control in the company at just $20.44/share during the blind auction and Comcast didn’t need their stake (i.e. little leverage) to gain control over the British pay-TV group.
The +/- $15.6 billion price tag greatly reduces the financial leverage DIS needs to close the $71.3 billion Fox (FOXA) acquisition and when you consider the revenue that’s expected to be generated from the sale of FOXA’s 22 RSNs (valued at +/- $15 billion-22 billion), it’s feasible net acquisition costs could drop all the way down to +/- $35 billion. Significantly reducing the financial debt load is important to Disney with costly broadcast rights renewals on the horizon (see: NFL 2021, MLB 2021, NBA 2025) and the company undergoing the capital-intensive transition from legacy wholesale model to a direct-to-consumer business model (Disneyflix). Disney shareholders seem to be on board with the decision, shares are up +/- 6% from the morning of the tender announcement (9.26); they’ll open at $116.94 on Monday 10.1.
Fan Marino: While some might believe that Comcast’s acquisition of Sky (EPL’s most valued media partner in U.K.) would ensure NBC remains the Premier League’s U.S. broadcast partner beyond the ’21-’22 season, historically, the EPL has ignored affiliation between rights holders and taken the highest offer; back in ’16, Sky in Germany lost EPL rights to then-newcomer DAZN (unproven, yet deep pocketed), despite have the rights of 126/128 games in the U.K.
Across the pond, U.K. soccer fans must be wondering if there will be any changes coming to Sky’s broadcast coverage in the wake of the ownership change. English futbol fans aren’t going to want NBC’s “Americanized” version, so Comcast would be wise to let Sky run their EPL coverage autonomously; focusing on the distribution of non-sports entertainment assets instead (see: Universal Pictures).
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