By Dawn Chmielewski
(Reuters) -Walt Disney said on Monday it has completed its purchase of Hulu, agreeing to pay NBCUniversal an additional $438.7 million for its stake in the streaming service.
The transaction gives Disney complete ownership of Hulu, clearing the way for a deeper integration with the Disney+ streaming service, and ESPN’s coming direct-to-consumer offering, CEO Bob Iger said in a statement.
Comcast agreed to sell Disney its 33% stake in Hulu in 2019, after the Burbank entertainment conglomerate acquired a majority stake the streaming service as part of its $71 billion takeover of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets. The agreement established a $27.5 billion floor valuation for Hulu, and set a process for arriving at a fair-market value that involved a third party appraisal that arrived at a final valuation.
Hulu, which boasts popular original titles such as “The Bear” and “Only Murders in the Building”, had 54.7 million subscribers at the end of Disney’s second quarter.
“Hulu was a great start for us in streaming that generated nearly $10 billion in proceeds for Comcast and created an important audience for NBCUniversal’s world-class content,” Comcast said in a statement.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Stephen Coates)
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