The FTC cleared the way for Sony Pictures TV Networks to acquire 95 percent of Japanese anime distributor Funimation Productions, said an early termination notice ending the transaction’s Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period. Sony announced the $143 million deal in late July.
The FTC won't pursue an investigation into Amazon.com's acquisition of Whole Foods Market (see 1707070048), said Bruce Hoffman, acting director-Bureau of Competition, in a Wednesday news release. He said the commission did an investigation to determine whether competition would be affected under Section 7 of the Clayton Act or "constituted an unfair method of competition under Section 5 of the FTC Act. Based on our investigation we have decided not to pursue this matter further.” Amazon and Whole Foods didn't comment.
The FTC issued an early Hart-Scott-Rodino termination notice for Eventbrite's $200 million purchase of Ticketfly from Pandora, the agency said in a notice last week. The transaction was announced in June (see 1706090005).
The FTC approved a final order Thursday that it said would resolve any anticompetitive consequences resulting from Broadcom's proposed $5.9 billion buy of Brocade (see 1707030030). Commissioners voted 2-0, after a comment period. The order requires Broadcom to implement firewalls preventing the flow of Broadcom's OEM partner Cisco's "confidential business information outside of a group of relevant Broadcom employees."
Restrictions on Charter Communications' debt are probably the biggest hurdle to any merger or acquisition, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker emailed investors Monday. She said that despite Charter having been named repeatedly in recent weeks as a possible target for companies such as Altice, Verizon and Comcast, Charter's post-Time Warner Cable debt structure includes a debt capacity cap that makes a potential buyer dependent on substantial equity to fund such a deal: Altice is the least-likely buyer; Comcast is unlikely to join Altice in a joint bid; and a Verizon deal faces too many regulatory and financial barriers, she said. MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett last week also dismissed Charter M&A speculation (see 1708100027).
Equifax bought identity theft protection company ID Watchdog for $63 million, the buyer announced Thursday.
The “Trump FCC’ has “bent the rules” to facilitate Sinclair buying Tribune, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler blogged for the Brookings Institution Friday. Wheeler pointed to Chairman Ajit Pai’s resurrection of the UHF discount (see 1704200048) and proposed elimination of the main studio rule (see 1707030047) as “strategically knocking down all the regulatory barriers to Sinclair Broadcast becoming a national goliath.” Though Sinclair is seen as a right-leaning company favorable to the Trump administration, conservative channels such as TheBlaze, One America News Network and Newsmax (see 1708080067) joined those deal foes, Wheeler said. “The Sinclair merger has built an interesting record of opposition from strange bedfellows,” he said. “The politics of the decision are now muddled, but politics shouldn’t be the basis for decisionmaking anyway.” The record on Sinclair/Tribune “would suggest that even though the Trump FCC has bent the rules to facilitate such a merger, it is not in the public interest,” Wheeler said. The agency and Sinclair didn't comment.
No report of supposed Charter Communications mergers and acquisitions -- the latest being Altice/Charter -- is credible, MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote Thursday, saying a variety of other proposed telco and media deals like Comcast/Verizon, Verizon/Dish Network, Comcast/Charter and Amazon/Dish are equally absurd. They don't "pass even the most cursory analytical tests," except for Sprint/T-Mobile -- which still is somewhat unlikely, he said: None of the proposed Charter buyers -- Verizon, SoftBank, Altice -- has the financial ability, and Comcast/Charter "would be a regulatory monstrosity" that likely wouldn't get DOJ approval -- ditto Comcast/Verizon. Verizon/Dish speculation ignores that Verizon is more interested in network densification than spectrum for adding capacity, the analyst said, and AT&T/Dish would leave AT&T overseeing a TV operation losing subscribers rapidly.
Cox Communications said its buy of Blueprint RF will complement its existing hospitality segment business of providing telco, in-room entertainment and managed Wi-Fi services to hotels, convention centers and arenas. In a news release Wednesday, Cox said it finalized its purchase of Blueprint RF, which designs, installs and supports wireline and wireless networks for hotel owners and operators.
The U.K. Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) asked Ofcom for a new review of Fox's proposed buy of Sky. The DCMS said in an update Tuesday that the July announcement it was leaning toward referring Fox/Sky for further investigation (see 1707200001) prompted comments that raised new evidence or commented on Ofcom's assessment. DCMS said it set an Aug. 25 deadline for Ofcom to report on those new points. Fox didn't comment.