News Corp and Telstra announced plans to merge their jointly owned pay television company Foxtel into News Corp’s FOX SPORTS Australia to create a large Australian sports and entertainment company.
The merger will result in News Corp owning a 65% stake in the new company, with Telstra owning 35%.
The merger will position the new company for a future stock market flotation, News Corp and Telstra said.
News Corp is the parent company of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.Telstra has always maintained Foxtel is a “strategically important” to the telcom, but it is known to be analysing its stake in the pay TV business and is keen to avoid another Sensis moment, where it waited too long to exit the directories business and ended up selling it to Platinum Private Equity for only US$454 million.
Full Content: Financial Review
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