According to philly.com, Comcast has hired MacKenzie Partners Inc. in New York to campaign and win support of big shareholders such as pension funds and institutional investors — a clear shot across the bow at Fox founder Rupert Murdoch and the Fox board.
Comcast officials did not comment on Friday. But they described a proxy solicitation of Fox shareholders as a Plan B in the event that Comcast believed that the Fox board failed to consider its offer.
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The move shows how important the Fox assets are to Comcast’s future. Analysts have said that Fox’s entertainment assets could help transform Comcast into a far more important entertainment company that could challenge the big content players like Netflix and Amazon. Likewise, if Comcast were to fail in this bid, there aren’t a lot of companies out there that could match Fox. So the struggle for this prize is shaping up to be a key turning point for the Philadelphia company.
Fox and Disney have scheduled shareholder votes that could approve the Disney deal on July 10. Fox is controlled by Murdoch who last year put into play his company’s entertainment assets, including its 39 percent stake in British network Sky TV, the Fox Hollywood studio and the FX cable channel.
Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Murdoch and the 21st Century Fox Inc. board will consider on Wednesday, June 20, how to proceed with Comcast’s bid, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
“Comcast is trying to force [Fox] into negotiations because it knows that Disney has the upper hand,” said David Becher, associate professor at the Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business. “There’s a short window for them to get Fox shareholders attention.”
Comcast, the largest U.S. cable-TV provider, believes that if it waits too long, Fox assets — and the chance for transformation they offer — could slip away for good. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts has said that Fox businesses would make it an “entertainment company of the future.”
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