Disney in talks to buy Fox: X-Men Homecoming? - Part 4

Going by that poster's history, it is what "JP expects". :p

He was pushing the "Constantin actually for owns the FF rights" narrative even when it was obvious to anyone with an IQ over 40 and a thinking brain that it wasn't even remotely true. I don't take what he says particularly seriously either.
 
He was pushing the "Constantin actually for owns the FF rights" narrative even when it was obvious to anyone with an IQ over 40 and a thinking brain that it wasn't even remotely true. I don't take what he says particularly seriously either.

I thought that was Digific Writer who did that. Unless I'm confusing the two now. I don't remember.
 
He was pushing the "Constantin actually for owns the FF rights" narrative even when it was obvious to anyone with an IQ over 40 and a thinking brain that it wasn't even remotely true. I don't take what he says particularly seriously either.
wut
 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greats...doj-approval-of-disney-fox-deal/#71e76a367079

There are still several stages that have to be completed before the deal is final. I am waiting for a Latverian Investor to arrive on the scene and ensure the Mouse is victorious.
It's just a few countries now that have to approve the deal, and the shareholder meeting is already scheduled for July 27. The US DOJ was by far the biggest obstacle.

The only holdup domestically is the court date for approving the terms of the settlement between the DOJ and Disney to sell off Fox's Regional Sports Networks.
 
What if, at the shareholder meeting, Fox votes against Disney and for Comcast?
 
What if, at the shareholder meeting, Fox votes against Disney and for Comcast?

I doubt Comcast will even be on the ballot. It will be: "Do you want to sell to Disney or not?" Who's going to want to sell but sell at a lower price to a company that might not even get approval?
 
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What if, at the shareholder meeting, Fox votes against Disney and for Comcast?

I doubt Comcast will even be on the ballot. It will be: "Do you want to sell to Disney or not?" Who's going to want to sell but sell at a lower price to a company that might not even get approval.
^This.

Comcast only comes up if the deal is rejected. At that point, bidding goes on.
 
^This.

Comcast only comes up if the deal is rejected. At that point, bidding goes on.

That's how it works? I thought that Comcast could make another offer in the interim and then the Fox shareholders would choose between the two.
 
That's how it works? I thought that Comcast could make another offer in the interim and then the Fox shareholders would choose between the two.

Yes, a new bid is a possibility, and if so, that would have to be considered and the vote could be delayed again.

But at the moment, there's no clear indication that Comcast intends to bid again and lack of funding and/or common sense could be coming into play.

The only credible rumor I've seen of a Comcast bid was that they'd bid $41 per share and that bid would be so insultingly low that it wouldn't be worth doing at this point. They would have to make a MUCH bigger bid at this point (particularly now that Disney's DOJ approval makes them the sure thing vs the risk), and there's no indication at the moment that they have the resources or interest to make that MUCH bigger bid.

So Comcast could make another offer, but the longer they're quiet, the less likely that becomes. And at this moment things are moving forward with a July 27th vote scheduled. If nothing changes, Comcast's current $65 billion bid won't be considered.
 
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So Comcast could make another offer, but the longer they're quiet, the less likely that becomes. And at this moment things are moving forward with a July 27th vote scheduled. If nothing changes, Comcast's current $65 billion bid won't be considered.
With them on the hunt for partners in a deal, I suspect they aren't getting any takers.
 
With them on the hunt for partners in a deal, I suspect they aren't getting any takers.

When you consider the theoretical value of the company before any of this started and the price Disney is planning to pay and the 20% premium Comcast would have to pay over that to have a realistic chance, it's crazy.

Is the value really there? I don't see it, and Comcast would have a hard time getting me on board with it.

I even think Disney is overpaying, but I don't really care, because I'm not a Disney investor - just a geek who wants a decent FF film. And I can see how Disney can at least make good use of the assets with their streaming service etc.

So if I were an investor being courted by Comcast, I wouldn't be particularly interested in throwing my money at this mess.
 
When you consider the theoretical value of the company before any of this started and the price Disney is planning to pay and the 20% premium Comcast would have to pay over that to have a realistic chance, it's crazy.

Is the value really there? I don't see it, and Comcast would have a hard time getting me on board with it.

I even think Disney is overpaying, but I don't really care, because I'm not a Disney investor - just a geek who wants a decent FF film. And I can see how Disney can at least make good use of the assets with their streaming service etc.

So if I were an investor being courted by Comcast, I wouldn't be particularly interested in throwing my money at this mess.

If Comcast had hung around these boards in 2015 when all the FFINO defenders were out in full force, they'd know where to look for investors now. :o
 
When you consider the theoretical value of the company before any of this started and the price Disney is planning to pay and the 20% premium Comcast would have to pay over that to have a realistic chance, it's crazy.

Is the value really there? I don't see it, and Comcast would have a hard time getting me on board with it.

I even think Disney is overpaying, but I don't really care, because I'm not a Disney investor - just a geek who wants a decent FF film. And I can see how Disney can at least make good use of the assets with their streaming service etc.

So if I were an investor being courted by Comcast, I wouldn't be particularly interested in throwing my money at this mess.

The recent WSJ columns have stated that Kabletown is primarily interest in the foreign assets Star and Sky. So while Roberts will lose the Indian property if he folds, they will have an excellent chance to grab Sky. Especially since he loaded the Mouse with an additional $20B or so in debt. And he will likely have a chance to pick up some RSNs in key markets when Disney has its "Everything Must Go!" sale later this year. As well as key talent from 20th Century Fox Film & TV that would prefer not to stick around for the merger.

I have been thinking for a while that Iger could "win" the bidding war by folding his hand, and that's true for Roberts as well.
 
The recent WSJ columns have stated that Kabletown is primarily interest in the foreign assets Star and Sky. So while Roberts will lose the Indian property if he folds, they will have an excellent chance to grab Sky. Especially since he loaded the Mouse with an additional $20B or so in debt. And he will likely have a chance to pick up some RSNs in key markets when Disney has its "Everything Must Go!" sale later this year. As well as key talent from 20th Century Fox Film & TV that would prefer not to stick around for the merger.

I have been thinking for a while that Iger could "win" the bidding war by folding his hand, and that's true for Roberts as well.

Yeah, IF Comcast actually goes to some crazy $90 billion bid or something, Disney would probably be smart to just step back, let them have it, and then buy the pieces they want from a Comcast that would be desperate for cash and willing to deal.

The biggest winner here might be the one who has the presence of mind to let the other one buy everything at an inflated price, go into debt and then help them relieve that debt a little by buying the pieces they most want.

Even if Disney charges Comcast a premium for Sky after this closes, it will be far more affordable than buying the whole thing.

And for those who say "Disney would never sell Sky", everything has its price and Disney will be looking to get some cash back if they can after this closes.
 
Yeah, IF Comcast actually goes to some crazy $90 billion bid or something, Disney would probably be smart to just step back, let them have it, and then buy the pieces they want from a Comcast that would be desperate for cash and willing to deal.

The biggest winner here might be the one who has the presence of mind to let the other one buy everything at an inflated price, go into debt and then help them relieve that debt a little by buying the pieces they most want.

Even if Disney charges Comcast a premium for Sky after this closes, it will be far more affordable than buying the whole thing.

And for those who say "Disney would never sell Sky", everything has its price and Disney will be looking to get some cash back if they can after this closes.

Well how do we know that Comcast would sell the Marvel parts to Disney and not to someone else? They might try to sell off other assets and hold onto Marvel just for the sake of it.

I don't know if that is such a good strategy trying to get the Marvel assets later on. Comcast could try to make their own set of Marvel movies.

Would Marvel even want to buy them, considering they've been doing perfectly well without X-Men and FF so far? Would they see that there's no point in spending that since they haven't seen a need to buy them from Fox before this deal?

I prefer that Disney win and then maybe sell off Sky to Comcast also in exchange for the remaining Marvel rights than to lose and then try to buy the Marvel rights from Comcast, which may not even happen.
 
Well how do we know that Comcast would sell the Marvel parts to Disney and not to someone else? They might try to sell off other assets and hold onto Marvel just for the sake of it.

I think it's highly unlikely they'd sell them to someone else. First off, the rights probably aren't transferable. Since Comcast is buying Fox, the rights will come with the studio, but selling to a third party is a whole different thing.

They're also not worth much to anyone else since they can't integrate them with the MCU and stand-alone FF films have a history of failing.

Marvel wants them. I have no doubt about that. Dr. Doom, Silver Surfer, Galactus and Kang have a big value/importance to the MCU just by themselves.

But there is the possibility Comcast would set a price Marvel wasn't willing to pay (I think that was the problem with Fox).

Some around here are convinced Comcast would make their own films. I'm less convinced of that because I don't think it makes financial sense. After the damage Fox has done, FF films specifically would have to be integrated with the MCU to have any real value. Comcast just repeating what Fox did is likely to produce similar results, and that's not a big money making proposition (particularly when they don't have merchandising).

There's also the issue of a tight timeline here. An FF film needs to be in active production by 2022. That means script, director, pre-production etc., should be starting by about 2020 to do things right. If everything gets scuttled and they have to start over, I wouldn't expect Comcast to close until mid to late 2019 at the earliest, so that doesn't give Comcast a lot of time to really think about what they want to do before being forced to begin pre-production of an FF film.

With all that in mind, I'd expect Comcast to either partner with Marvel or sell to Marvel and the latter would be the neater, cleaner and probably preferable to both parties option.
 
Well how do we know that Comcast would sell the Marvel parts to Disney and not to someone else? They might try to sell off other assets and hold onto Marvel just for the sake of it.

Don’t forget that Comcast offered to pay Disney the 1.3 billion break-up fee if the Fox shareholders ultimately walk away from the deal. Comcast would be loaded with so much debt at that point that may want to split the domestic assets in order to lessen their debt load, and give up Fox’s Marvel rights to Disney as partial compensation for the break-up fee.
 
Even if Comcast comes back and bids 90 something billion dollars I do wonder what Disney’s response would be. Do they immediately wave the white flag and say “We’re done!” I think Comcast’s next bid will likely be their last but boy I’m curious if that amount will be enough to defeat Disney. Probably. Probably not. Me hopes the Mouse has something up their sleeve even in case of such a ginormous bid.

Which is why the wait is killing me. I’m eager to see what Comcast does next.
 
When you consider the theoretical value of the company before any of this started and the price Disney is planning to pay and the 20% premium Comcast would have to pay over that to have a realistic chance, it's crazy.

Is the value really there? I don't see it, and Comcast would have a hard time getting me on board with it.

I even think Disney is overpaying, but I don't really care, because I'm not a Disney investor - just a geek who wants a decent FF film. And I can see how Disney can at least make good use of the assets with their streaming service etc.

So if I were an investor being courted by Comcast, I wouldn't be particularly interested in throwing my money at this mess.
Yeah, Disney is overpaying. That is particularly why Iger isn't screwing around right now behind the scenes. They need to be able to leverage these assets practically immediately and they can't afford to have anyone else on their side messing anything up.

Everything Comcast has done thus far has been from desperation. There will likely never be another opportunity for the to scale up this amount, so on certain levels it made sense for them to attack it as hard as they did. That debt load that they would have taken on would have been catastrophic though. They are better off going the piecemeal acquisition route as that has ultimately always worked better for them.
 
Comcast can't sell the rights to anyone. People should remember Fox does not own all the rights to these characters. They simply own the rights to have these characters in movies and TV and those rights are not transferable, and so if they have to sell it, it can only be back to Marvel.
 
Even if Comcast comes back and bids 90 something billion dollars I do wonder what Disney’s response would be. Do they immediately wave the white flag and say “We’re done!” I think Comcast’s next bid will likely be their last but boy I’m curious if that amount will be enough to defeat Disney. Probably. Probably not. Me hopes the Mouse has something up their sleeve even in case of such a ginormous bid.

Which is why the wait is killing me. I’m eager to see what Comcast does next.

While a massive winning Kabletown overbid wouldn't be the ideal scenario for MCU fans, it might work out in the end. So long as Roberts either goes it alone or partners with an equity firm, one of his first priorities is going to be to reduce his debt burden. There's a decent chance at least SOME of the Marvel rights will be in play.

A bad scenario would be if Comcast partners with a tech company or cable operation that wants to hang onto the domestic assets for their own self.
 
But the X-Men are the only Marvel rights Iger could justify paying for. The rest he has to argue are worthless because there's no way of knowing they'd make a premium over films starring one of the 7,000 Marvel characters they already have.
 
It’s a nice little fantasy that some fans have that Disney would be willing to buy the rights from Comcast but frankly Disney already has IP that far exceed any Fox-owned Marvel property. Black Panther alone made more money than any of the Fox movies ever have. Marvel would like to have access to the Fox properties, sure, but they’re in no immediate rush. They’re not bleeding money because they don’t have FF(a property that has been greatly devalued now). Marvel Stuidos is already more successful with the properties they own than Fox is with their Marvel properties.

I also don’t see Disney be willing bow down to Comcast’s terms to get the Marvel rights unless they offer them as collateral for the break-up fee that is owed to them if Fox decides to go with Comcast instead of them. If Comcast demands Disney pay then no way Iger is obliging at all. And there’s chance Disney is working with Comcast to bring the Marvel characters into MCU either.
 
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