Fox has accepted a new offer from Disney, with the House Of Mouse upping its offer from $52.4 billion to $71 billion.
This offer surpasses Comcast's previous offer of $65 billion for Fox, with Fox accepting the offer pending a further bid from Comcast. The deal, if it goes through, would represent a fundamental shift in the landscape of the movie houses and would see 20th Century Fox and its rich portfolio of IPs come under the control of Disney. The deal was initially thought to be closed, with the sale initially expected to be done by Christmas of last year - however Comcast's bids have pushed the bidding war on another few months.
Currently, Disney's bid on the table amounts to $38 a share for Fox, $10 higher than their initial offer and $3 more than what Comcast previously offered. Analysts from Bloomberg, however, believe that Comcast won't be able to top Disney's current offer as it would likely ramp up their debt in order to pay Fox's price.
Fox's share prices rocketed up 6.58% in the past hour and now stand at $47.65 as of writing, whilst Comcast's share price has fallen to $32.80 - down from $34.33 last week when it first placed a bid for Fox. Disney's share prices fell from $109 the day of Comcast's offer to $105 a few days later, but now appears to be ticking up again to $107 as news begins to circulate on the renewed bid for Fox.
The board of Fox, including the Murdoch family, are currently meeting in New York to consider Disney's latest bid and while there doesn't yet appear to be any time limit on when the deal will close, the next few days will likely tell whether or not the sale will finally go through.
