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Time Warner Turns Down Takeover Bid From Rupert Murdoch
Dave Knott (2917251) writes The media giant 21st Century Fox, the empire run by Rupert Murdoch, made an $80 billion takeover bid in recent weeks for Time Warner Inc. but was rebuffed. Time Warner on Wednesday confirmed that it had rejected a cash and stock offer from 21st Century Fox, saying that it was not in the company's best interests. Time Warner's board discussed the proposal at length and early this month it sent a terse letter rejecting the offer, saying the company was better off remaining independent. A Time Warner statement pointed to its own strategic plan, what it said was "uncertainty" over the value of 21st Century Fox stock and regulatory risks as among the reasons for its rebuff. The company said that 21st Century Fox had offered a premium of roughly 22 percent to Time Warner's closing price on Tuesday. Shares of Time Warner were up about 20 percent in premarket trading on Wednesday morning. The combined company would have total revenue of $65 billion.
The more these big media / film studios merge, the less choice there will be.
Murdock should buy comcast first, then twc. What will they have to say then?
They will still have a monopoly in my area regardless of who owns what.
I thought the idea was that Comcast was merging with Time Warner in order to strengthen their cable monopoly. Is Time Warner's ISP a different business than Time Warner's content company or something?
"Remember that time we let AOL merge with us?"
Seriously though, letting the guy who owns Fox News buy CNN would have been a big deal even for the proles.
To turn down a $80 billion dollar deal...that's the price Time Warner is willing to pay to keep their successful business successful. South Park sold out to Hulu for only a fraction of the price, $80 million! $80 billion, nah, we're better off independent.
All I can say is that if we actually had decent anti-trust enforcement (YAGTDRR - Yet Another Good Thing Destroyed by Ronald Reagan), these mergers wouldn't even be an issue to begin with. Since they are, thank God this one seems not be going forward.
$80 Billion? Who is he kidding, with how much they overcharge customer for rudimentary service that cost less than 1/4 in any other country, they can make that profit right back in in less than a year.
3...2...1....
They are not concerned at all about "best interests." They want more money and a big sweetener for current management and board members.
Super
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....shudder....
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
But even we have standards.
Remember when America Online bought TimeWarner? That actually happened. Almost as crazy as being bought by the parent company of DC Comics.
it would help to keep switching back to satellite once in a while.
For what? A 10 GB per month data cap? (source: exede.com)
Time Warner spun off Time Inc. last month. So why isn't it back to Warner Communications now?
So Rupert Murdoch wants to pay $80 billion to merge another company with his company, after which the combined value of both will be $65 billion? That doesn't add up for me... Can someone explain this in simple human terms?
You propose to trigger a breakup once a firm maintains a supermajority market share in a sector. Now define a "sector". Would you, say, break up Tesla for making 70% of desirable 4-wheel electric passenger vehicles when nobody else is attempting to sell anything but purposely bad compliance cars? (In fact, after seeing other automakers' failure to deliver a solid EV, Tesla decided it doesn't even want a monopoly and announced availability of its patents for licensing.) Would you break up the NFL for having the lion's share of professional football revenue?
If Fox were to get DC, does that mean the X-Men would finally get to cross over with the rest of Marvel once Fox rewrites the next X-Men film script for DC's Doom Patrol?
Its not often that Time Warner looks good next to another corporation.
After sharing headlines with AOL, Comcast, and now Rupert Murdoch they may have run out of worse alternatives...
It depends on how badly he wants it.
He can do a hostile take over which basically means he or his company ends up cpntrolling 51 percent of the voting stock and puts his own management team in charge and forces a merger.
He doesn't have to own 51% of the stock, just enough to be able to vote and somehow manage to get enough other stock holders to side with him ( and yes, paying them is a valid tactic).
The threat of regulatory issues was cited as one of the reasons they rejected the offer, and in this case I'd say it would be a very good thing for the government to reject this. We don't need fewer but even more gigantic media companies.
Now I'll never see spider man in the avengers
. .
WTF?
There's no company named 21st Century Fox.
Dipshit editors. Oh, wait....
Fox would have owned CNN.
Of course, FoxNews owns CNN's ass already.
The subject line says it all.
No. No. No.
I'm sure this thing was all just a secret Illuminati plot to put the X-Men and Fantastic 4 movie rights into the hands of DC Comics.
Paying them is probably not a valid/legal tactic. Most jurisdictions make it illegal to pay people different amounts in a takeover. You pay everyone the same or don't take over the company.
Sectors are defined by a market
Lawyers spend a lot of time trying to convince judges to adopt a definition of relevant product market that gives their respective clients an advantage in competition court. Here's another example: Does GM compete against, say, Trek and Specialized in the personal transportation sector?