IBC365 looks back at some of the notable mergers and acquisitions of the past month within the media and technology industry.

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M&A review: April

T-Mobile and Sprint complete $26 billion merger

US telco giants T-Mobile and Sprint officially completed a $26 billion merger this week.

The newly combined parent company is called T-Mobile, and Sprint will no longer trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

It was also announced that T-Mobile chief executive John Legere will step down earlier than anticipated. Mike Sievert has been appointed CEO, effective immediately.

ViacomCBS acquires Israel’s Ananey and buys stake in Miramax

ViacomCBS closed two major deals in April, starting with the acquisition of a major stake in global film and TV studio Miramax.

The deal came in at $275 million, including a $150 million upfront cash payment to owner BeIN Media Group and $45 million of annual investment over the next five years.

The deal includes ViacomCBS’ subsidiary Paramount Pictures entering into an exclusive, long-term distribution agreement for Miramax’s film library. BeIN will retain its 51% stake.

In the same week, ViacomCBS Networks International (VCNI), a division of ViacomCBS, announced its acquisition of Ananey Communications Group, an Israeli content producer and pay-TV channel provider.

VCNI is acquiring the shares in Ananey it does not already own, following its acquisition of a minority stake in the company in December 2016.

Ananey will be fully consolidated into VCNI.

CNN purchases Canopy

CNN bought Canopy, a New York based maker of a news-reader app. The broadcaster plans to employ Canopy’s technology for its forthcoming news-aggregation service.

Canopy builds products that help users discover online content through a mix of human curation and machine learning.

CNN, which is a unit of AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia, did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Canopy’s developers now work for CNN.

Fox buys AVOD Tubi

Fox agreed to buy Tubi, an AVOD streaming service in March for $440 million.

The acquisition is strategic move from Fox to try to stay competitive in the content market after offloading 20th Century Fox assets to Disney last year.

Fox also offloaded its stake in streaming platform Roku, which partly funded the acquisition of Tubi.

Pex acquires Dubset Media

Music and video analytics and digital rights management company Pex bought Dubset Media in a move to have access to its extensive licence catalog and ‘massive and rare’ music rights database.

The deal marks the growth of Pex into an industry-leading copyright solution. 

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