On Friday morning, simultaneous meetings were held in New York City for the shareholders of Disney and 21st Century Fox. The topic of the day was the proposed acquisition of Fox by Disney. The final votes will be revealed in a filing with the SEC, but both bodies overwhelmingly approved the deal.
According to Deadline, two shareholders spoke up. The first wanted to know when compensation would begin, and that is set for 30 days before the close of the deal. The second simply stated, “I love Rupert Murdoch.”
At the Disney meeting, one shareholder stated that they felt Disney was overpaying for the deal.
Both meetings are said to have taken around 10 minutes.
The Disney deal will now need to jump through a few more regulatory hoops, but it is believed it will sail through those. The antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice – which is currently fighting the AT&T merger with Time Warner – has already given its blessing to the deal. The only caveat from that ruling body was that Disney would need to divest itself of the regional sports networks Fox had purchased over the years.
With the blessing of the DOJ, it is believed the rest of the regulatory meetings will be smooth sailing.
Currently, the Disney/Fox deal is expected to close in the first half of 2019.
