Two of America's largest media companies are about to settle a bidding war to buy a coveted overseas competitor, reports CNBC.
Twenty-First Century Fox and Comcast will go head to head in London over the weekend at a takeover auction for British broadcaster Sky. The deal will likely set Sky's new owner back by about $36 billion.
Sky shares are currently trading well above Comcast's last takeover offer price of £14.75 ($19.46) a share, which is the largest amount that has been offered so far. Fox's latest offer trails behind at £14 per share.
Not to mention the elephant in the room: Disney. The entertainment giant may well become Sky's outright owner if Rupert Murdoch's Fox emerges from the fight victorious. Disney is on track to acquire assets of Fox, and that includes a 39 percent stake in Sky.
Sky's stock price was last trading at around £15.87, which gives it a market capitalization of £27.19 billion, or $35.95 billion.
Gervais Williams, U.K. fund manager at Miton Group, which owns Sky stock, said the increase of Sky's share value meant investors were "assuming something around the £16 (per share) level."
Williams said Friday that he believed Sky would remain a separate entity and brand, no matter who its new owner is.
"I suspect it will continue to have its own identity because the business itself is a European business in its principality, the bidders are mainly U.S.-based," he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe."
"From that point of view, I think they are going to continue to have the two different operations with their own market positions."
