Axel Springer's Leap to buy Telegraph Media Group

European media firm Axel Springer is buying TMG (Telegraph Media Group), owner of Telegraph brands including the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, for £575m (beating a previous attempt by DMGT to acquire TMG for £500m). Matias Dopfner committed to "preserve the distinctive character and legacy" of his latest acquisition. Part of the strategy will be to expand the Telegraph's reach to the US. This is Axel's largest acquisition since 2021 when it acquired Politico for roughly $1bn.

Ellison backed Paramount in Pole Position for $111bn Takeover for Warner Bros

Warner Bros was put up for sale last year. 

In light of Paramount's new bid, Netflix has dropped out of the bidding race citing the transaction was a "nice to have" not a "must have" at all costs. 

Rob Bonta, California Attorney General (the State's "top legal boss"), warned the transaction was "not a done deal".

Netflix updates bid to all-cash offer for Warner Bros

Netflix has offered an all cash for Warner Bros.

The aim is to push off  repeat bids from Paramount Skydance (PSKY, backed by Larry Ellison, whose son David founded Skydance, and produced Top Gun -Maverick) which have been repeatedly rebuffed.

The deal would include Warner Bros film and TV studios, HBO and HBO Max, content library and streaming operations. 

However, Warner Brothers (currently Warner Bros Discovery) would lose the Discovery brand (which includes CNN, Discovery Channel and Food Network, making it one of the largest linear TV operators in the world). Discovery would be taken public mid 2026.

Warner Bros has stuck with Netflix's bid and questioned Skydance's financing.

Netflix stock is up, Paramount down.

Netflix Acquiring Warner Bros for $82.7bn

The deal would give Netflix rights to several iconic franchises including DC Comics, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

Owning the franchise means controlling the legal rights to exploit the intellectual property across different media and commercial formats such as films, TV, video games and merchandise and theme parks.

A key metric giving insight into the strategic rationale - content released in the last year make up 5% of titles on Netflix, drives 20% of viewing - showing engagement is directly correlated to content spend.

Reshuffling Residencies at Informa PLC

Falkirk-born Lord Stephen Carter (founding CEO of media watchdog Ofcom in 2003), Group Chief Executive of Informa, a FTSE100 company, has shifted his residency to the UAE.  The Group's COO, Patrick Martell, has moved to Informa's New York office. Just 5% of Informa's revenue is domestic 40% US and 36% Middle East and Asia. The Board signed off the mass relocation plan following executives spending increasingly less time in the UK.

Sale of Kantar Media Completes

Kantar Media has been sold to HIG Capital in a deal estimated to be around $1bn. 

HIG was advised by Morgan Stanley, ING and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. 

Kantar Media is media data business, with activities including audience measurement, consumer profiling and advertising intelligence. Kantar Media is based in London and active in 60 markets worldwide and has been operationally independent from Kantar since 2023. 

Linda Yaccarino Steps Down as Chief Exec of X

Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of X after a two year tenure which saw the coming together of Elon Musk's xAI with the messaging platform.

Linda has an Italian-American background and has worked substantially in the media industry, starting her career at Turner Entertainment (founded by Ted Turner in 1986 and purchased by Time Warner in 1996).

Maginative is an AI News Platform

Maginative is an AI news platform bringing the scoop on OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, Meta, NVIDIA and more.

Abu Dhabi backed Redbird IMI selling Telegraph and Spectator

Prospective owners can bid from June 21st.

Amazon Swallows MGM for $8.45bn

MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), the 97-year old Hollywood studio founded in 1924, and based in Beverly Hills, responsible for "Singin' in the Rain", and "Ben Hur" and owners of the James Bond and Rocky franchise, has been bought by Amazon, in its second-biggest acquisition to date.

Amazon's historically largest acquisition thus far has been the purchase of Whole Foods for $13.7bn in 2017. 

Kevin Ulrich, Chairman of the Board of Directors of MGM, and also CEO of New York based hedge fund Anchorage Capital, and former head of Goldman's distressed bank debt desk, stated it was "an inspiring combination".

Avengers: Endgame Boosts Disney Share Price to $140

Disney's share price rose to $140 following news of the success of Avengers: Endgame, its latest release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

To date, the top 10 Marvel films have brought in  more than $1bn each on average, supporting Disney's decision to acquire Marvel in 2009 for $4bn. Marvel was founded in 1986 as a subsidiary of Cadence Industries (it was subsequently taken over several times, and was described as a "mini-Disney in terms of intellectual property" by Greensboro-born American businessman,  Ron Perelman, who won $1.5bn from Morgan Stanley in legal claims, a decision which was later reversed).

After Marvel, Disney later acquired Lucasfilm (2012) from founder George Lucas for $4bn (citing "substantial pent-up demand" for Star Wars movies, and 21st Century Fox (2019) (which owns in turn Star India, and majority owns Hulu, a low-cost streaming media subscription service and Fox Deportes, formerly Fox Sports en Espanol).

Disney Plus, a new streaming service, is also set to be launched late 2019, featuring the entire Star Wars series plus a range of Disney-owned content.

ABC Television alumnus Robert ("Bob") Iger has been CEO of Disney for over a decade, succeeding Michael Eisner in 2005, having been five years in the COO position.

Bob went to Ithaca College in New York (Tompkins County).

Bob earned a whopping $65m for being CEO in 2018. He also joined the Board of Directors of Apple in 2011 (chaired by American businessman and former CEO and later Chairman of Genentech, Arthur Levinson).

Markit goes Public with $24 a share IPO

Markit (NASDAQ:MRKT) has gone public at $24 a share.  No money will be raised, however, for the company, and the shares were sold only for the selling shareholders. Over 53 million shares were on offer.

Closure of the News of the World

10 July 2011 - the final edition of the News of the World is printed. The 168 year old newspaper is no more, following revelations of the paper's involvement in phone hacking since 2002. A slogan from the paper in 1910 reads: "Contains more news than any other paper".

Private Equity Attacks Invesment Banking: Citi Assailed by Guy Hands' "Solid Earth"

Terra Firma (Latin for "solid earth"), the PE group of Guy Hands which he spun out of Nomura International, is suing Citigroup over the EMI deal in 2007 in which it paid £2.5bn (which they referred to as a "fraudulently inflated price", or was it £4bn?) at the height of the buyout boom. Citi acted as adviser to EMI. Guy is a graduate in PPE from Mansfield College, Oxford (founded on the principle that "dissenters" had the right to study at Oxford).

US giant Tribune files Chapter 11, Tough Year for Media

The Tribune, owners of LA Times and Chicago Tribune, filed for Chapter 11 ("reorganization") bankruptcy (which allows the firm to remain in business, as opposed to a Chapter 7 or "liquidation" bankruptcy) having struggled with $13bn of debt it took on when going private last year. The go-private deal was led by Sam Zell, a real-estate billionaire. The Tribune was first published in 1847. A primer on bankruptcy basics in the US is detailed here.

Overall 2008 has been a tough year for media companies. Apart from the Tribune, Scotland's Herald, Sunday Herald and Glasgow Evening Times announced a merger of their editorial teams, and the Independent is moving in with the Daily Mail to save money on rent. One spark amidst the gloom, reports City AM, is the niche publisher Future, whose 2008 pre-tax profits were up 27% to £9.5m. Reports CityAm "Futures magazines are ...managing to pull in advertising because they focus on the niche. If a consumer is buying an Xbox or mountain biking magazine, the chances are they're going to buy some of the gear that's advertised inside". "We are producing content for absolute enthusiasts" said CEO Stevie Smith.

The UK's insurance sector, it has been reported, is doing well despite the credit crisis. Insurance (excluding brokers and auxiliary professionals) represents 1% of UK GDP employing 325,000 people. Figures from Swiss Re indicate the UK is the largest insurance centre after the US, with Japan coming in third place just above France.