Comcast bids for Sky with pledge of editorial independence

Comcast formally kick-started its bid to takeover Sky today with a £22 billion bid that would effectively side-line Rupert Murdoch from the business he founded in 1990.

The US cable giant is promising to protect the editorial independence of Sky News and fund the channel for at least ten years.

Comcast, run by Brian Roberts, thinks it can find $500 million (£360 million) of cost-savings from combining the two businesses, but promised a “limited impact on headcount”.

Investors will be offered £12.50 a share plus a final dividend of up to 21.8p a share. There is a competing offer for Sky from 21st Century Fox at £10.75 a share which would see Murdoch grab the 61% of the shares he doesn’t already control.

Comcast plans to delist the company, potentially leaving Fox – and Murdoch -- as disgruntled minority owners of a business regarded as dear to his heart.

Comcast, which owns NBC and CNBC, employs 1300 people in the UK already. It sees Sky as a way to expand rapidly in Europe and increase the content it offers its 30 million US cable subscribers.

Both bids need approval from the government. Culture secretary Matt Hancock today declined to speculate on the outcome, telling the Standard: “All I can say is we will follow the process laid out by law very carefully.”

Regulators are concerned about media plurality given Murdoch’s ownership of newspapers including The Times.

Comcast promised today not to take a controlling stake in a UK newspaper for five years. It also pledged to keep Sky’s Osterley headquarters for at least five years.

Fox is pursuing a separate deal to sell most of its assets to Walt Disney, including Sky. Disney has claimed to be interested in owning Sky, but its commitment is unclear.