Though I wonder if the competition watchdog might have something to say about Sky owning a piece of the commercial revenue NZR is spinning off for the SL deal, while NZR in turn own a piece of Sky.
Not saying it can't happen, but it would be interesting to see if that would cause any issues.
Also, if Sky are allowed to buy a piece of this new entity...it would elminate any chance of someone else (like Spark Sport) being able to have a serious chance at competing for rugby rights in the future. I think this would be a big problem.
I still believe that it is inevitable for Sky to become a fully fledged telco (like Sky UK). And I think the newly merged 2D will be the most likely candidate. I say this because:
I doubt Spark would get clearance to buy Sky even if they wanted to since they own Spark Sport and have an exclusive NETFLIX deal (competition concerns)
Vodafone are in the process of shitcanning Vodafone TV. Infratil have zero interest in entering Pay TV.
2D is positioning themselves as a real challenger brand. To maximise growth they need a point of difference - and Sky TV could be that point of difference.
Lookit, even if someone bid a whopping 55% premium to the current SP that would be about NZ$700M ($4/share). Sky will probably generate ~NZ$20M more FCF in H2. So that would mean that they should have NZ$150M or so cash in the bank and zero debt by June 30.
In other words, if you bought Sky for NZ$700M that is really an EV if only NZ$550M. That price, my friends, would be an absolute steal for an asset like Sky which is going from strength to strengh, has solid and sustainable FCF and would produce obvious synergies and large upside to the right telco.
Not to mention, NZ$550M is absolute chump change to the owners of Voyage Ltd (MIRA-AwareSuper). These guys have many billions of dollars to invest, and if taking (effectively) half of one billion of those dollars to grab another asset that could make 2D the largest telco in NZ over time is a no-brainer.
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