Fox, rebuilt around live sports and news, now owns the software running the televisions in many American households. Roku holders receive $95.30 in cash plus 0.9799 Fox Class A shares for each share, leaving them about 26% of the enlarged company, and Roku's stock stops trading on the Nasdaq as of Friday, Fox said in its release. Roku started out selling streaming boxes and grew into a major U.S. connected-TV platform. A former distribution partner becomes a subsidiary. It also brings first-party viewing data and control of a living-room home screen, assets streaming rivals have spent years trying to assemble.
The deal caps a strategy Fox has followed since it was carved out of the old 21st Century Fox, built on live programming and, through Tubi, free streaming. The Roku agreement, signed June 14, priced the target at $160 per share initially, or about $22 billion in enterprise value, according to Fox's announcement filed with regulators.
Fox closed well ahead of its own timetable. As recently as August, Fox was telling investors it expected the deal to close in the first half of calendar 2027, according to its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call. The Justice Department had widened its review with a second request in September, scrutiny prompted partly by lobbying from Newsmax owner Chris Ruddy, who has feuded with the Murdochs, yet it was poised to let the deal proceed under a consent decree, Semafor reported on Nov. 2. The main worry among rival programmers was that Fox might tilt Roku's neutral home screen toward its own channels. Friday's release did not describe any conditions attached to the clearance.
Integration comes next. Roku founder Anthony Wood joins Fox's board and will co-chair a new FOX Digital Platforms division alongside Paul Cheesbrough, and Fox is targeting about $400 million of run-rate cost savings within two years. Fox has not said how advertising sales or product groups will be organized across the combined businesses. Both executives said Roku's platform will stay open to every content partner.