Disney Officially Owns 21st Century Fox

Photo credit:  Shakir Superville via Flickr

By Richard Heaton

On the morning of March 20, one of the most historic corporate mergers in history took place. Disney officially owns 21st Century Fox.

Last year, Disney placed a bid to buy-out all non-news properties of the Fox Corporation. The bid was worth in excess of $71 billion and became one of the ten largest mergers in history.

Since then, everyone in the entertainment industry began to prepare for the ramifications that the merger would create by making one of the largest companies in the world even bigger.

Disney already bought out the rights to Marvel and Star Wars over the past decade and now add franchises such as Avatar, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Die Hard, and Planet of the Apes.

This is big news for fans of Marvel Comics though, as both X-Men and Fantastic Four are returning to their original owners.

The assets that were left behind by Disney are now collectively known as Fox Corp and include Fox News, Fox Sports, and programming rights to all FOX owned television networks. Ahead of the merger, FOX Corp added Paul Ryan and Chase Carey to the board.