At the Disney meeting, shareholders voted on one item. Disney’s final offer was made up of equal parts cash and stock — $35.7 billion in cash, 343 million shares — and Disney investors had to approve the issuing of those shares.
Despite the importance of the deal and the sensational way it played out over many months, Mr. Iger and Mr. Murdoch did not attend the shareholder votes. Mr. Iger was on a previously scheduled overseas trip, and Mr. Murdoch similarly decided to keep a commitment in California. Mr. Murdoch’s sons, James Murdoch, Fox’s chief executive, and Lachlan, Fox’s executive chairman, also stayed away.
The deal ends Mr. Murdoch’s reign over an entertainment empire he spent six decades building. He will become a significant minority shareholder in Disney and will continue to run his remaining businesses, which include Fox News, the Fox broadcasting network, the cable network FS1 and newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and The Sun in Britain.
Lachlan, the elder son, will become chief executive of the remaining TV businesses, which are being collectively called New Fox. James will not join Disney and will leave his father’s company. His plans remain unclear, though he stands to make more than $1 billion in the Disney deal.
Many people in Hollywood see the acquisition as the sad ending of an era. Disney is acknowledging that the future of television and movie viewing is online and this move could set off a wave of mergers in a film business that has not seen significant consolidation since 1935, when 20th Century Pictures and Fox Film merged to form 20th Century Fox.
Disney must wait for regulatory approval before speeding ahead with its integration plans for 21st Century Fox — plans that include substantial layoffs. The deal received surprisingly speedy approval from United States regulators, but foreign governments must still sign off.
Analysts expect that Disney will clear those hurdles by early 2019.
American antitrust regulators approved the merger on the condition that Disney, which already owns ESPN, divest all of Fox’s 22 regional sports networks, which include channels like the Yankees’ YES network. Guggenheim Securities has estimated the value of the chain at roughly $22 billion.
