Disney buys Comcast’s stake in Hulu. The entertainment giant announced Wednesday that it “expects to pay $8.61 billion” to acquire Comcast’s 33 percent stake, giving Disney full ownership of Hulu.
But Disney could end up paying more than that. Both Disney and Comcast agreed to an appraisal process that will evaluate the fair value of Hulu’s stock as of September 30. If Comcast’s stake is determined to be “greater than the minimum guaranteed value,” Disney will have to pay Comcast the difference.
Disney says the timing of the review process is “uncertain” but expects it to be completed sometime next year. This all stems from the deal Disney made with Comcast to buy its one-third stake in Hulu in 2019. The deal was initially set to take place in 2024, but Comcast and Disney agreed to move the date to September 30.
The two companies agreed on a minimum valuation of $27.5 billion for Hulu at the time. “That was just a hypothetical that we settled on five years ago,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said at an investor conference in September. “The company is much more valuable today than it was then.”
With Hulu seeing little shift in subscriber numbers last quarter, Disney announced a price increase for all its streaming services and hinted at a crackdown on password sharing. In October, Hulu’s ad-free service went from $14.99/month to $17.99/month, while Hulu with Live TV increases from $68.99/month to $75.99/month. We’ll likely hear more about Disney’s plans for Hulu during the company’s earnings call next week.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCU division is a minority investor in Vox Media, The edge‘s parent company.