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Makes a lot of sense, I think the pause should last at least 2 or 3 years if they're serious about investing in Sky. Sky needs tens of billions in purchases of cable units to really become anything like a European Comcast. I don't see how they can do that if they're fully funding share...

I think Disney and Comcast would both want all of Hulu, but Disney having 60% gets them much closer to that than Comcast with 30%. I also think we should wait and see what Comcast's future strategy for Sky is..., if Comcast wants to build Sky into a European Comcast, then they may need to spend...

I think there's room for compromise here, and Comcast getting 100% of Sky may actually help pave the road for Hulu to go international: Disney is going to want to create bundles for Hulu in the US, while Comcast is going to want to protect Sky's PayTV and streaming services in Europe. There's...

Yeah, this whole thing was why many in the media/tech industries were so skeptical of Hulu in the beginning (and why Disney/Fox/Comcast almost cashed out early and off-loaded it back when it only had a few million subscribers). Granted Hulu has come a long way and is now a pretty legitimate...

I think we also possibly underestimated that maybe Disney wants Comcast as a partner in Hulu for the short/medium-term at least: Yes both companies compete vigorously in all content areas, but Hulu is currently burning through cash and in the short term having NBC's content helps sell the...

That's why I'd expect Disney to tell Fox to sell most of the Sky shares. There is no real advantage to Disney to holding Sky shares beyond $3-5 billion worth for a negotiation for that 30% of Hulu that Comcast owns. So if you're Disney and you're time limited on this 17.28 pounds per share...

The problem is that Disney and Comcast were making offers to Fox on the basis of Fox's stock price and then applying implied valuations later; that's why all of these numbers are "hocus pocus" in some sense, especially given that Disney is counting $42 billion of the $71 billion offer as...

Six Flags and Cedar Fair are only comparable to one aspect of Disney's business (which accounts for somewhere around a third of its revenue and profits), and all 3 are public companies. I could use Six Flags and Cedar Fair to provide valuation estimates for Disney or Universal's theme park...

Those estimates were based on dividing up the value of Disney's offer to Fox among Fox's assets (if you're talking about the most recent valuation estimates); most other estimates of Hulu's valuation have been book value estimates. Time Warner was invited to invest into the business taking an...

Also, one factor missed in a lot of this analysis is that Disney can choose to sell some, but not all of their Sky stake at the 17.28 pounds price. What if Disney sells 29% of Sky and keeps 10%? Then Disney locks in 17.28 pounds per share on that 29% and still has 10% to trade for the Hulu...

The problem with this analysis is that Hulu doesn't trade publicly, so any valuation ascribed to it is probably a book value (i.e. value of financial statements) not a market value (value based on what the business is worth in a competitive market). Sky is valued based on the market value of...

There's big differences between markets though; Europe is a wholly different beast from the US: In Europe, content creators are much better protected and laws are coming around that will force distributors to honor content quotas in every EU state, some of those quotas can even apply to...

Also worth pointing out that Europe is a very different from the US in terms of laws/rules, and that's why Sky is so important. Legacy carriers have a lot more protections in Europe from streaming services; that has to be a part of the calculus here: Owning a satellite service that's...

I don't think Iger was fibbing about Sky just like I don't think Roberts was fibbing about how great Fox's assets were. Reality is both companies would have preferred to get all of the assets at a reasonable price. But if forced to only get one set of assets at a higher price instead of both...

Sky's plan is follow what DirecTV is doing in shifting from satellite to OTT with DirecTV Now or what Dish is doing in shifting from satellite to Sling; the Sky leadership wants to gradually shift Sky to being OTT without a satellite. In some sense, Sky will be Comcast's long-term competitor to...

Overpay is in the eye of the beholder: Disney's original offer for Fox's assets was $52 billion in stock (and assumption of $14 billion in debt). Disney's revised offer for Fox's assets was $36 billion in stock, $36 billion in cash (and assumption of $14 billion in debt). Disney's offer for...

I do think Disney's balance sheet is part of why Iger held back here. If Comcast never came through with an offer on the Fox assets, Disney would willingly take on the extra $25-30 billion in debt for all of Sky (remaining 61% for around $15-20 billion and $10.3 billion in Sky's debt)...

Yeah Disney has spent the last 10-15 years as a very low-debt, risk-averse company that makes calculated bids (and rarely makes large cash-heavy offers). Disney bidding below 16 tells me they didn't plan on winning Sky because they knew Comcast would go over 16. Disney would have gone from $30...

17.28 per share is a crazy number; Comcast will get 55+% of the shares outstanding (out of the overall 61%) probably with an offer that big. I honestly didn't think anybody would go over 16.50... In some sense this is best for Disney probably; if Disney had paid $40 billion with an offer over...

Well now Iger and Roberts have some things to talk about: Disney controls 39% of Sky (from Fox) as well as 60% of Hulu. Comcast will control 51+% of Sky and 30% of Hulu. Could we see some trading soon? Disney's 39% of Sky for 30% of Hulu and cash and maybe some minor rights (like Hulk...