Comcast's Roberts floated spinning NBCU into merger with Electronic Arts - report
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Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) CEO Brian Roberts recently proposed spinning off the company's NBCUniversal media unit in order to merge it with videogame giant Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA), Puck News reports.
Terms of the deal would have had the Roberts family take majority control of the combined entity, with EA CEO Andrew Wilson running it - and NBCU CEO Jeff Shell elevated to another role at Comcast, Dylan Byers reports.
That deal fell apart due to disagreement over price and structure, according to the report.
Electronic Arts is no stranger to consolidation talk, having held talks in the past with a number of suitors including Disney (DIS), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN), Byers says, noting EA may be more emboldened for a deal in the wake of Microsoft's (MSFT) pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard (ATVI).
Meanwhile, Comcast's potential acquisitions have been media fodder for years, after Comcast failed to intervene in Disney's takeover of Fox media assets, and Discovery's David Zaslav engineered a merger with AT&T's WarnerMedia (WBD).
And notably, Comcast ended a year-plus pursuit of Time Warner Cable in May 2015, leaving that cableco to be acquired by rival Charter.