BSkyB to combine with Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland?
Rupert Murdoch is reportedly looking to combine British Sky Broadcasting Group with Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland.
Bloomberg broke the news about a possible combination of the three main European Sky platforms quoting anonymous sources.
The transaction that would transform British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc (BSY) into a European satellite-TV giant.
BSkyB, partly owned by Fox, is working on a deal valued at about 10 billion euros ($14 billion) to acquire control of satellite carriers Sky Deutschland AG (SKYD) and Sky Italia from Fox, according to people with knowledge of the matter. At the moment, Murdoch holds a 39% stake in BSkyB, while Fox holds 55% of Sky Deutschland and 100% of Sky Italia.
A deal would give BSkyB, already the biggest pay-TV provider in the U.K., oversight of companies that sell satellite programming to 8.5 million homes across Germany and Italy.
In the UK, Sky had 15 million subscribers at the end of March 2014, while Sky D had 3.73 million subscribers, and Sky Italia had 4.75 million. A combined Sky Europe would serve around 23.5 million customers, but such a deal would almost certainly spark the interest of European regulators.
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