Back on November 1, The Walt Disney Co. seemed to culminate one of the most active discussions in media entertainment, agreeing to purchase Comcast's remaining 33% share in Hulu.
But it turns out the drama isn’t over.
Reuters reported Tuesday that the two companies are looking to hire a third outside financial adviser to determine the value of Comcast's share in the streaming company.
Also read: Disney Entertainment DTC Business Gets Out of the Red in Q2
This comes after Disney's adviser, JPMorgan Chase, and Comcast’s consigliere, Morgan Stanley, came in with valuations that were more than 10% apart from one another.
As per the purchase agreement carved out last year, if the valuations had been within 10% of one another, the two sides would have met in the middle, agreeing to the average of the two sums.
As it happened, JPMorgan Chase valued Hulu at $27.5 billion, while Morgan Stanley put the number at above $40 billion.
The valuation will now be determined based on the average of the third-party valuation and whichever of the two existing appraisals is closest to the new one.
And Comcast and its NBCUniversal division will receive 33% of whatever that works out to be.
The valuation can be no lower than $27.5 billion, which is the floor value assigned to Hulu in the 2019 “put call” agreement between the two media giants, the deal that paved the way for Comcast to sell its share in the former joint venture.
Hulu ended Disney's fiscal second quarter at the end of March with 50.2 million subscribers, up about 500,000 sequentially and 2 million customers year over year.
Disney has already integrated Hulu into its flagship Disney Plus streaming app.
