News Corp and Telstra, the joint owners of Australian pay-TV service Foxtel, are considering a deal that would reduce Telstra’s stake in the venture and take News Corp’s to 51 percent, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. As part of the proposed deal, News Corp would inject its Fox Sports Australia business, a local unit for sports content, into Foxtel and the business may then be publicly listed. The new entity may be valued at as much as AUD 8 billion (USD 6.1 billion), the Australian Financial Review has reported, citing unidentified people.
Gaining control would give News Corp more room to add new programming and seek agreements with other technology platforms. A deal would give Telstra a partial exit from the pay-TV provider battling cheaper on-demand streaming services. Telstra may eventually sell most of its stake in Foxtel through an initial public offering, retaining a shareholding of around 19 percent, the report said.
