Comcast Is Paying Up for Sky: Now What?
By many measures, Comcast overpaid to acquire British pay TV firm Sky -- but if transformation is Comcast’s goal, the cost could be justified, experts say.
By most Wall Street measures, Comcast is overpaying for its acquisition of Sky, the British satellite TV, broadband and mobile services provider. When the U.S. cable giant announced last month that it had won the auction for a controlling stake in Sky by bidding $40 billion, shares of Comcast fell by as much as 8% intraday amid a slew of analyst downgrades. It now might have to pony up more money to buy Fox’s stake in Sky to get full ownership. “It’s an extraordinary price,” noted Mike Fries, CEO of rival telecom and satellite TV services provider Liberty Global, on Bloomberg TV.
