21st Century Fox has until the end of Thursday in battle for control of pay-TV broadcaster

Rupert Murdoch could table a new £26bn-plus offer for Sky this week in an effort to stop rival Comcast from becoming the new owner of Europe’s biggest pay-TV broadcaster.

Under UK takeover rules, Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has until the end of Thursday to formally post a bid to Sky shareholders as he looks to take control of the 61% of Sky he does not already own.

Sky posts forecast-beating annual results as bidding war rages on Read more

Murdoch’s current bid of £24.5bn is below Comcast’s £26bn offer – which Sky’s independent committee has recommended that shareholders accept. However, he could choose to post the scheme document for his inferior bid to Sky shareholders this week and improve his offer later if he wished.

Analysts, on the other hand, do not believe it makes sense to go through that costly process and believe Murdoch should sweeten his offer before Thursday’s deadline.

“Logic says that it would make the most sense to put their best foot forward and make a new offer rather than send out the documents with the current inferior bid to shareholders,” says Bruno Burki from research and advisory firm United First Partners.



Murdoch could use Fox’s full-year results at the close of business in the US on Wednesday to announce a new bid. Disney, which could look to sideline Murdoch and mount a direct bid for full control of Sky, is due to report its latest quarterly results on Tuesday.

Sky is trading at £15.13 a share, above Comcast’s £14.75-a-share offer, indicating investors believe Murdoch is not ready to throw in the towel in the bidding war just yet.

Last month, Disney’s $71.3bn offer to take over Fox, which includes a 39% stake in Sky, was approved by the shareholders of both companies. Because Murdoch has a deal in place with Disney, Fox must ask for consent each time a new bid is made for Sky.

Disney, which has called Sky the “crown jewel” of Fox’s assets, revealed in a recent financial filing that it had upped Sky’s profit forecasts by as much as a third in the coming years, partly because of the huge cost savings made on the pay-TV company’s latest deal for Premier League rights.

Last month, Comcast pulled out of its pursuit of Fox to focus on Sky, leaving the way open for Disney and ending a spiralling bidding war.

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This move has led some analysts to believe that an amicable carve-up may be on the cards, if Comcast beats Murdoch to the 61% of Sky, with Disney selling the 39% of Sky it will own through buying Fox to Comcast. In return, there may also be an asset swap, with Comcast handing over its 30% stake in Hulu, a US competitor to Netflix. Disney owns 60% of Hulu, doubling its stake by taking Fox’s 30% as part of the deal with Murdoch.

Some analysts believe Disney is more suited to the non-Sky assets, which include the Hollywood studio behind films from X-Men to Deadpool and TV shows such as The Simpsons and Modern Family, and the cable giant Comcast is a better match for Sky.

However, Sky has huge strategic value to both companies, which are looking for customer growth outside their core US markets and control of more content to compete with the rising threat of Netflix, Amazon and, ultimately, Apple and Google as well.