21st Century Fox Gets EU Approval For Sky Takeover

On Friday, the European Commission approved 21^st Century Fox’s (NASDAQ:FOXA) deal to takeover Sky, a popular European pay-TV company. The deal is worth about $14.5 billion, and the only remaining hurdle left is a British investigation into the bid.

The Commission, which is the European Union’s executive body, reviewed the deal for antitrust issues and gave it “unconditional” approval. "[Fox and Sky] compete with each other only to a limited extent, mainly in the acquisition of TV content and in the wholesale supply of basic pay TV channels," the body wrote in its decision.

Fox already owns a roughly 39% stake in Sky, and it agreed to purchase the rest of the company back in December. Sky operates in European markets like Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the U.K.

Even though the EU found no competition concerns, the Fox-Sky deal still has to clear a forthcoming investigation in the U.K. According to the BBC, U.K. Culture Secretary Karen Bradley has asked regulators to investigate the deal, and she said Ofcom, a media watchdog, and the Competition and Markets Authority, would get back to her by May with the decision.

Part of the investigation will include whether or not Sky’s possible new owners, Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch, who are both joint chairmen of Fox and News Corp. (NASDAQ:NWSA) , are “fit and proper.” Mr. Murdoch’s other son, James Murdoch, is chief executive of Fox.

Back in 2011, Rupert Murdoch was actually in the process of taking over Sky, but had to abandon the deal amid that year’s phone-hacking scandal involving journalists at his U.K.-based newspapers.

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