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Surprise! Fox Corp. has closed its acquisition of streaming platform Roku, a deal valued at $22 billion, well ahead of the expected 2027 date.
Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood will join the Fox board of directors. He
will serve as co-chair, Fox Digital Platforms, a newly formed division that includes Roku, Tubi, Fox One, Red Seat Ventures and other digital products and services across the company, alongside Paul Cheesbrough, who assumes the role of co-chair and CEO of the division.
“The closing of this acquisition advances the long-term strategy of Fox,” Lachlan Murdoch, executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp., said in a statement released Friday.
“Beginning today, our top priority for the combined company is to continue to relentlessly serve audiences and partners, while reinforcing the openness and choice that is the essence of the Roku platform. Our shared entrepreneurial passion and clear conviction toward building the future together with our new Roku colleagues gives us great confidence in the opportunities ahead of us.”
With this acquisition FOX has entered a new transformational era – creating an innovative scaled media and technology company with superior reach, engagement and monetization capabilities. The combination of FOX’s premium live sports, news and local programming with Roku’s open connected TV platform reaching across more than 100 million households creates new opportunities for the Company to serve its viewers, advertisers and partners.
This transaction accelerates FOX’s digital strategy and expands FOX’s business mix towards high-growth streaming and connected TV verticals, strengthening our long-term growth profile. The Company expects to achieve approximately $400 million of run-rate cost synergies within two years following the transaction close, with additional potential revenue upside, and anticipates that the transaction will be accretive to free cash flow per share by the second full year after closing.
Importantly, from an operating standpoint, Roku will continue to play its role as a leading open ecosystem for the broader streaming industry. A key element of Roku’s ubiquity is the choice it offers viewers and the value it provides to content partners. Together, FOX and Roku will preserve and build on these strengths.
