21st Century Fox Offered to Buy Time Warner
Time Warner Rejected the Deal, Which Valued the Company at $85 a Share
21st Century Fox Inc. made an offer in early June to buy Time Warner Inc. TWX +18.04% at $85 a share.
Time Warner rejected the offer curtly, after Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes took the proposal to the board. Since then, Time Warner has been unwilling to engage with Fox, FOXA -0.98% according to people familiar with the situation.
Fox has suggested that synergies of a combination could be worth more than a billion dollars, but it wanted to have discussions to fully ascertain value of those savings and Time Warner hasn't been willing to talk, one of the people said.
Fox proposed selling off CNN, the one Time Warner asset it felt regulators would balk at being combined with Fox, which already owns Fox News channel, a CNN competitor. Otherwise, Fox was proposing buying all of Time Warner.
The New York Times NYT -1.53% previously reported news of the offer and rejection.