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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 $65 billion.
Is Time Warner's ISP a different business than Time Warner's content company or something?
Yeah, Time Warner spun off Time Warner Cable in 2009 as a separate company.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yes, Time Warner, Inc (what this story is referring to) is a different company from Time Warner Cable (which Comcast is looking to acquire).
Its also different from TW Telecom (formerly Time Warner Telecom, which is being acquired by Level 3.
Its a complicated mess of mergers and spinoffs...
3...2...1....
They will still have a monopoly in my area regardless of who owns what.
This is off topic, since TWC isn't the same company as TWI, but...
They keep talking about the "lack of overlap" in their markets, but that's bogus. Comcast and TWC overlap in the "negotiating with content providers" market. The larger the company, the harder they can negotiate against the cable channel providers not already owned by one of them. They might say this will yield lower prices for consumers, but you and I know that's total bullshit.
What it actually means is that they'll either drop channels that won't negotiate, and focus more on providing only channels they create, or the third-party channels they keep will need more ads - more in-show ads - and cheaper shows (reality TV) to make up the difference in revenue they lost.
I don't like the content providers either (give me a la carte or give me death!) but TWC and Comcast at two separate negotiating tables is much better for consumers than a merged monolith at one table.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
That case was solved by sorting them into either "Verizon" or "AT&T".