Rich Greenfield Breaks Down Why He's Bearish on Disney Buying Fox
Disney struck a deal on Thursday to help build up its arsenal of content as it prepares to launch its own video streaming service.
The media giant agreed to pay more than $52 billion for most of 21st Century Fox, adding the company's film and TV studios, international properties and channels such as FX.
But BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield says doesn't understand why the company wants to increase its exposure to the "troubled legacy media business."
"This feels like Disney is cementing itself in the past, rather than aggressively moving into the future," he told Cheddar in an interview shortly after the deal was announced. "There were a lot of transactions they could've done that would've been a lot more exciting than this."
The alternatives? Greenfield says Snap, Twitter, Activision-Blizzard, or Spotify would all have been better options.
But the deal does give Disney ownership of high-profile franchises such as "X-Men" and "The Simpsons," titles that could make the library for its own planned streaming service more attractive.
The company said in August that it will pull content off Netflix in 2019. Instead, films from "Iron Man" to "Star Wars" to "Toy Story" will only be available on its own platform.
To watch the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/btig-analyst-rich-greenfield-on-disney-fox-deal).
In January alone, the gaming sector has seen three major acquisitions. Yesterday, Sony added to the flurry of M&A activity in the gaming space, snatching up game developer 'Bungie' for $3.6 billion dollars. Renee Gittins, executive director at the International Gaming Developers Association, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
General Motors reported its Q4 earnings Tuesday. While chip shortages impacted sales and revenue last quarter, Paul Jacobson, GM Chief Financial Officer, told Cheddar chip availability has gotten better since Q3. This is crucial as GM has pivoted its focus toward electric vehicles. It recently announced it will be building a new battery plant in Michigan, making $35 billion in EV investments, and producing a million electric vehicles by 2025.
Google’s philanthropy arm, Google.org, recently announced a $10 million grant for the AARP Foundation to aid in teaching digital skills to low income older workers. As the implementation of hybrid work expands, a greater emphasis is being placed on helping workers 50 years old and up — especially among women and people of color — to be digitally literate in order to keep the workplace generationally diverse. Lisa Marsh Ryerson, president of the AARP Foundation, joined Cheddar News to talk about the curriculum of the partnership. "Those of us who are 50 and older are not digital natives, so we do have a learning curve that we have to address," she noted.
AT&T announced earlier today it is spinning off its media properties in WarnerMedia in a merger with Discovery in a $43 billion deal.Scott Rostan, founder and CEO at Training The Street, joined Cheddar to talk about what the unwinding of the telecom giant's Time Warner media properties means for investors. "I think the investor sentiment is they're digesting the new information, and they're looking into the dividend, especially the reduction of the dividend," said Rostan, noting the transaction allows AT&T to focus on its core telecommunications business.
