Brazil approves The Walt Disney Company’s acquisition of Twenty-First Century Fox – with a catch.
The Disney/Fox acquisition has been a huge topic of news. While both companies approved the merger back on June 20, 2018, the acquisition will not be finalized until countries that both companies operate in approve of the merger.
According to Bloomberg, one of the last holdout countries – Brazil – is poised to approve the merger today. CADE (Brazil’s economic regulatory council) will green light the transaction on the condition of the sale of the Fox Sports Channel and related sports program rights. The concessions were made based on the council’s concerns that Disney would monopolize the TV sports channel market. Similar concerns were raised in Mexico, with each country coming to a comparable agreement.
Disney and Fox have around ten days to complete all paperwork for the acquisition, which means the earliest closing date for the deal would be March 8, 2019. This closing date is later than earlier speculation that the transaction would conclude the last few weeks of 2018, but would still fall in the initial timeline that was given by Disney.
