Media & Entertainment

Sony enters a painful new M&A season in India

23 Jan 2024

The Japanese giant is ditching the agreed union of its Indian unit with $3 bln broadcaster Zee. Sony dodges a difficult partner but it will prolong the slugfest in the country's cutthroat entertainment industry. The plot could thicken and disrupt rival Disney's dealmaking too.

Disney’s Bob Iger falls flat by his own standards

18 Jan 2024

Activist Nelson Peltz wants the $166 bln media company’s shareholders to back his board slate. Iger’s defense as CEO is that Disney is on the right path by taking sports network ESPN direct to viewers and cutting streaming losses. Trouble is, progress looks slim on both measures.

Paramount suitors chase a Pyrrhic deal prize

11 Jan 2024

Warner Bros Discovery and David Ellison’s Skydance are weighing a deal for the media company. The former could reap $3 bln in savings while the latter would control the movie studio it already does business with. Either way, Paramount lumbers under debt and would be subscale.

Disney’s angry mob risks doing more harm than good

3 Jan 2024

Boss Bob Iger struck a deal to secure support from Mason Morfit’s ValueAct ahead of a looming proxy fight with Nelson Peltz. Pushy fund Blackwells, meanwhile, has nominated its own directors. The mess is of Iger’s own making, but competing agendas further complicate his job.

Sony Activision riposte will involve mobile gaming

27 Dec 2023

Microsoft’s $69 bln Activision deal threatens its Japanese rival’s console dominance. But it also establishes a bridgehead for the US firm in the $90 bln mobile gaming space. Recent mobile weakness and an expected return to growth mean 2024 is a good time for Sony to plug in too.

Gen Alpha will tire of living online

26 Dec 2023

As kids born since 2010 age into the digital world, their fatigue from being forced online will prompt backlash similar to Gen Z. Both will become smarter about the implicit agreement of trading services for data and make life more difficult for companies from Alphabet to OpenAI.

Paramount casts itself in next season’s M&A hit

21 Dec 2023

By starting talks with potential acquirer Warner Bros Discovery, the Redstone family is effectively putting its $10 bln media empire in play. There are multiple ways to structure a deal, and many possible suitors. It’s just not clear debt-laden WBD is the best for the role.

Disney’s 2024 lifeline leads to Tim Cook

21 Dec 2023

Boss Bob Iger is seeking a partner for sports network ESPN. Tim Cook’s Apple would be a nice co-owner. The brands are aligned, the executives have a history with movie studio Pixar, and the iPhone maker is getting deeper into sports.

Vivendi takes slow road to unleashing value

14 Dec 2023

The 10 bln euro French media group may list pay-TV arm Canal Plus and advertising group Havas. That might help controlling shareholder Vincent Bolloré cut Vivendi’s conglomerate discount. A quicker ploy would address the fact that the rump is still a disparate jumble of assets.

Hotel-deal hostility just piles on extra baggage

13 Dec 2023

Radisson-owner Choice is taking its $7 bln offer directly to Wyndham shareholders. The target’s stock price reflects some doubts about chances for success. Even with the added threat of a proxy fight, investors have good reason to want more cash and less of the buyer’s equity.

Spotify and Netflix hum different content tunes

4 Dec 2023

The music-streaming service is slashing its workforce by 17% to stem losses. Like Netflix, Spotify is beholden to onerous content costs. But Reed Hastings’ company is making shows and has higher gross margins. Spotify boss Daniel Ek’s ‘buy’ strategy hasn’t borne regular profit.

Saudi’s Indian cricket play works for both sides

30 Nov 2023

The kingdom is looking to invest as much as $5 bln in the Indian Premier League. In this Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists discuss what it means for the sport and how it sizes up against Riyadh’s growing global sporting ambitions.

 

Warner Bros Discovery boss’s payday is toast

27 Nov 2023

David Zaslav has to boost the HBO operator’s value by $79 bln to collect stock options worth $200 mln. That’s a stretch even if better parts such as video games and streaming services pick up. His compensation, like the dealmaking that created the company, evokes a bygone era.

Adevinta $13 bln bid puts minorities in a corner

22 Nov 2023

Permira and Blackstone are seeking to take the Norwegian classifieds group private. The offer price isn’t overly generous but the chance of activist investors stalling the deal is low. With top shareholders already supporting the bid, minority investors don’t have alternatives.

Telegraph M&A twist hinges on Gulf leniency

21 Nov 2023

A vehicle backed by Abu Dhabi and a US buyout firm may take control of the newspaper by paying off the debts of its longtime Barclay family owners. Lender Lloyds would win. Yet it all hangs on potentially risky Gulf loans to the Barclays, whose main business is hardly thriving.

Two Disney activists aren’t better than one

15 Nov 2023

Mason Morfit’s ValueAct has taken a stake in the $168 bln Magic Kingdom, where it can take its own pushy path or work with fellow cage-rattler Nelson Peltz to shake things up. Dueling campaigns would make boss Bob Iger’s job easier. Tag-teaming doesn’t guarantee success.

Disney cost cuts enable Iger to mouse around

9 Nov 2023

The boss of the $155 bln entertainment company found $2 bln more to slash as he tries to fend off activist Nelson Peltz, who is seeking board seats. Disney+ narrowed its losses and nabbed more subscribers, too. But he’s skirting bigger decisions Disney needs beyond cuts.

Bezos makes third losing bet on real estate

3 Nov 2023

The founder of $1.4 trln Amazon is relocating to Miami from Seattle, in part to be closer to his space venture. His new neighborhood could be underwater before he turns 90. Like hampered plans for a HQ in Virginia and conquering the cosmos, this latest move is a dud.

Alphabet feigns to be underdog in cloud game

3 Nov 2023

The $1.6 trln tech giant invested in AI startup Anthropic. Its outlay will come back to the Google parent in payments for cloud computing. CEO Pichai is giving companies an alternative to Microsoft and Amazon. Competition is good, but would be better if it wasn’t among Big Tech.

Capital Calls: Paramount’s stricter streaming

3 Nov 2023

Concise views on global finance: The media stalwart’s shares popped 10% as boss Bob Bakish predicted that losses from its costly streaming push have topped out. But the company still faces a cutthroat market full of better-resourced rivals.