Deals
Murdoch Rule of Europe Sky Complete as Ambition Pays Off
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Rupert Murdoch and his son James have spent years cobbling together a pay-TV empire stretching from Manchester to Munich to Milan, but the family’s ambition of bringing it all under one roof foundered after a 2011 phone-hacking scandal that tarnished the Murdoch name. Today the deal was done -- with a non-Murdoch at the helm.
Jeremy Darroch, 52, will oversee a $9 billion transaction uniting British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc with Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland AG. BSkyB will buy the shares from another Murdoch company, 21st Century Fox Inc. The purchase will create a media powerhouse that beams TV programs via cable and satellite to 20 million subscribers in five European countries.