LONDON (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox (FOXA.O) has raised its offer for Britain’s Sky (SKYB.L) in an agreed deal valuing the pay-TV group at $32.5 billion, seeing off rival bidder Comcast (CMCSA.O) for now.
Fox, which has been trying to buy the pan-European group since December 2016, offered to pay 14 pounds per share, a 12 percent premium to Comcast’s offer, but below the 15.00 pounds Sky shares were trading at on Wednesday.
Analysts said the bid threw down the gauntlet for Comcast, the world’s biggest entertainment company, to return with a higher offer.
The U.S. cable group gatecrashed Murdoch’s attempt to buy the 61 percent of Sky his group did not already own in February, when Fox was still firmly stuck in the regulatory process.
One top-40 Sky shareholder said they expected Comcast to come back with a counter bid for Sky.
“The end price really depends on the appetite of those companies and how much they are willing to take their leverage up and at what stage their shareholders say enough is enough,” the shareholder, who did not wish to be identified, said.
The fight for Britain’s leading pay-TV group is part of a bigger battle being waged in the entertainment industry as the world’s media giants offer tens of billions of dollars in deals to be able to compete with Netflix and Amazon.
Comcast and Walt Disney (DIS.N) are locked in a separate $70 billion-plus battle to buy most of Fox’s assets, which would include Sky.
Disney secured
