It appears that Disney is about to clear the final hurdle to close its acquisition of the majority of 21st Century Fox. The issues were coming out of Brazil, and a source with knowledge of those proceedings has told Bloomberg that everything has now been cleared.
The issue came down to the ownership of the Fox Sports channel in Brazil. Due to Disney’s ownership of ESPN, retaining both of these channels would have given Disney more market power than the government was comfortable with. Disney’s Bob Iger flew to Brazil earlier in February to try to broker a deal to keep the Fox Sports channel, but in the end, the company did agree to sell it off to get the deal a greenlight.
The formal declaration that Disney may move forward with its purchase is due on Wednesday.
When will the Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox close?
Brazil was one of the last holdouts over the past two months and caused the deal to be pushed further and further back. With the clearance from Brazil expected at any moment, it seems that the deal could be finalized in March.
The finalization of the deal will be followed by months of merging the two corporations and getting all of the plans into place. Just how soon the end consumer will see any changes is still a bit up in the air at this time.
This will create a media company unlike any ever seen before, and it will be fascinating to see just how far this reaches into everyone’s entertainment choices.
