---
title: "Disney → 21st Century Fox"
url: "https://mahouse.world/ma-deals/disney-buy-21st-century-fox-2017"
type: "M&A deal"
year: "2017"
---

# Disney → 21st Century Fox

Disney bought the film and television studios, cable networks and international businesses of Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox for $71.3bn after a two-round contest with Comcast, to stock the streaming services it was about to launch, while the Murdochs kept Fox News and the Fox network in a new company.

Disney's initial $52.4bn offer was raised to $71.3bn in June 2018 after a counter-bid from Comcast.

- **Acquirer:** Disney (United States)
- **Target:** 21st Century Fox (United States)
- **Value:** $71.3B
- **Announced:** December 2017
- **Completed:** March 2019
- **Sector:** Media
- **Deal type:** acquisition

## Why it mattered

The idea followed Disney's purchase of control of the streaming technology company BAMTech: Bob Iger wanted Fox's film and television libraries for Disney's own streaming service, and Fox's stake would turn Disney's share of Hulu into control. Because rules barred a merger of two of the four big US broadcast networks, the Fox network, Fox News, Fox Sports and the Fox television stations had to be spun off first, into what became Fox Corporation. The first agreement, on 14 December 2017, was all-stock: 0.2745 Disney shares per Fox share, $52.4bn of equity and about $66.1bn including net debt.

Comcast, which had dropped out three days before that agreement, returned on 13 June 2018 — the day after a judge cleared AT&T's purchase of Time Warner — with an all-cash offer of $65bn, or $35 a share. A week later Disney answered with $38 a share, half in cash and half in stock: $71.3bn of equity and $85.1bn including $13.8bn of net debt, with at least $2bn of cost savings promised by 2021. The Justice Department approved on 27 June on condition that Fox's 22 regional sports networks were sold. Comcast withdrew on 19 July to concentrate on Sky, shareholders approved on 27 July, and the deal closed on 20 March 2019.

## What it left behind

The libraries fed Disney+, launched on 12 November 2019, and Hulu, where Disney held 60% at closing. It bought out AT&T's 10% in 2019 and Comcast's third, paying the $8.6bn minimum in December 2023 and a further $438.7m in 2025 after a valuation dispute. Much of the rest was sold or merged away: Fox's 39% of Sky went to Comcast for £11.6bn in 2018, the regional sports networks to Sinclair in 2019, and Star India was combined with Reliance's Viacom18 in November 2024 in a venture in which Disney kept 36.84%. The Fox name was dropped from the studios, now 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures. A buyer that bids up for a strategic core should plan from the start for everything else in the package: Disney paid for libraries and control of Hulu, and much of what came with them was later sold or diluted.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_21st_Century_Fox_by_Disney