Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox clinches $14.8bn Sky buy

LONDON AFP Dec15, 2016   
Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox on Thursday sealed a $14.8-billion (14-billion-euro) cash deal to take control of pan-European pay-TV giant Sky and create a global entertainment titan.   

The Murdoch-controlled Fox group said in a statement that it has reached a formal agreement to buy the 61-percent stake in Sky that it does not already own.   

The deal valuing Sky at 18.5 billion comes five years after Australian-born media mogul Murdoch failed to clinch a takeover after a notorious phone-hacking scandal at his newspaper empire.   

 “The strategic rationale for this combination is clear,” 21st Century Fox said in a statement issued in New York. London-listed Sky last week revealed that it had agreed to an informal cash offer of 10.75 per share from 21st Century Fox.