Fox Completes $22 Billion Roku Acquisition

Fox Corporation has completed its roughly $22 billion acquisition of Roku, taking control of the connected-TV platform used in more than 100 million households and turning one of America’s biggest broadcasters into a much larger force in streaming and digital advertising.

The deal closed on Friday, 6 November, less than five months after it was announced in June — well ahead of the first half of 2027 timetable the two companies originally set out. Roku shares stopped trading on the Nasdaq on the closing day.

A deal closed months early

The speed of the close surprised even seasoned deal-watchers. When Fox and Roku announced the agreement in June, the companies said they expected the transaction to take until the first half of 2027 to complete. Instead, regulatory reviews wrapped up in under five months, and the US Department of Justice closed its antitrust review on the same day the deal completed.

Under the final terms, Roku stockholders receive $95.30 in cash and 0.9799 shares of Fox Class A common stock for each Roku share they held. That leaves Fox stockholders owning about 74 per cent of the combined company and former Roku stockholders about 26 per cent. Goodwin, the law firm that advised Roku, confirmed the transaction was completed on 6 November at an approximately $22 billion enterprise value.

What Fox is buying

Roku is the operating system behind the television set in tens of millions of American living rooms. The acquisition hands Fox the front door to more than 100 million households worldwide, along with Roku’s fast-growing platform advertising business.

Fox is folding Roku into a new division, FOX Digital Platforms, alongside its free streaming service Tubi, its FOX One app and Red Seat Ventures. Roku founder Anthony Wood will join the Fox board of directors and serve as co-chair of the new division, with Paul Cheesbrough as co-chair and chief executive.

Fox said it expects about $400 million of run-rate cost savings within two years of closing, and that the deal should add to free cash flow per share by the second full year after closing. The Roku deal caps a busy year for corporate deal-making in American technology and media, and it comes days after Berkshire Hathaway’s record $377 billion cash pile underlined how much firepower large US companies hold.

The open-platform promise

The biggest question hanging over the deal was whether Fox, which owns rival services Tubi and FOX One, would favour its own content on Roku’s home screen. The Justice Department’s review focused on that risk, and Fox gave undertakings to keep Roku open to competing content providers for at least three years.

Fox also agreed to keep data firewalls in place for content partners, covering the click, search, viewing and voice data that rival services generate on Roku devices. The Antitrust Division concluded the merger was “not likely to result in harm to competition”, reasoning that Roku would damage its own business if it squeezed Fox’s rivals.

Fox said Roku would remain an open ecosystem, and no immediate product changes were announced.

Roku arrives in strong form

Roku came into the deal with momentum. Days before the close, the company reported third-quarter results showing total net revenue of $1.5 billion, up 24 per cent on a year earlier, with platform revenue up 23 per cent to $1.3 billion and net income of $183 million.

Fox, meanwhile, reported diluted earnings per share of $2.20 on revenue of $4.571 billion for its fiscal first quarter, which ended on 30 September. Fox confirmed the closing in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Fox shares edged 0.25 per cent higher on Friday, closing at $59.50.

What it means for viewers

For the tens of millions of households that switch on a Roku device each evening, little changes for now. The home screen, the apps and the remote all stay as they are, and Fox has promised rival services will keep their place on the platform.

Over time, expect Fox to weave its live news, sports and entertainment more tightly into Roku’s home screen and advertising platform, while rivals watch closely to see whether the open-platform promises hold. The closing came at the end of a bruising week for US stock markets, with technology shares under heavy pressure.