Fox Completes $22 Billion Roku Acquisition, Replaces Top Executives at Both Companies

Fox Corporation said Friday that it had completed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, closing the largest deal in the company's history months ahead of the timeline executives had laid out this summer and setting off an immediate overhaul of leadership across both companies' streaming operations.

The closing was disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which included the companies' joint announcement. Fox and Roku first struck the deal in June, and as recently as this fall the companies had told investors they expected the transaction to close sometime in the first half of 2027. Instead, shareholders of both companies approved the merger in October, federal antitrust clearance followed, and the deal closed on Nov. 6.

A faster-than-expected close

Under the terms disclosed in the filing, each share of Roku Class A and Class B common stock converted into $95.30 in cash plus 0.9799 shares of Fox Class A stock, a structure that valued Roku at roughly $160 a share when the deal was announced — about $22 billion in total. Existing Fox stockholders now hold approximately 74 percent of the combined company's common stock, with former Roku stockholders holding the remaining 26 percent. Roku's shares stopped trading on the Nasdaq exchange as of the closing date.

Fox has told investors it expects roughly $400 million in annual cost savings within two years of closing and that the deal should add to free cash flow per share by its second full year as part of the company. Fox's most recent quarterly report, covering the period through Sept. 30, had disclosed that the transaction still required clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and that shareholders of both companies had voted to approve it that month.

The acquisition pairs Fox's live sports, news and local broadcasting with a connected-television platform that the companies say reaches more than 100 million households worldwide. Fox has argued the combination makes it the third-largest player in U.S. television by share of viewing, a case built on adding Fox's broadcast and cable audience to Roku's reach into streaming households. The deal follows Fox's 2020 purchase of the ad-supported service Tubi and lands amid a broader wave of consolidation in American media, including Paramount Skydance's pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Fox's relationship with Roku is older than Friday's deal suggests. The company had held a roughly 5 percent equity stake in Roku dating to 2013, and it sold that stake in 2020 to help finance the Tubi purchase, according to trade press coverage at the time. Six years later, Fox has acquired the rest of the company outright. Roku's board and management team were advised on the sale by Qatalyst Partners, with Goodwin Procter and Axinn serving as legal counsel, while Fox worked with Allen & Company as lead financial adviser alongside Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, according to the companies' closing announcement.

A new division, and an executive overhaul

The closing immediately reshaped leadership at both companies. Fox created a new unit, Fox Digital Platforms, to house Roku, Tubi, its FOX One streaming service and the Red Seat Ventures podcast business. Paul Cheesbrough, who had run Fox's Tubi Media Group as chief executive, becomes co-chair and chief executive of the new division. Roku founder Anthony Wood is joining Fox's board of directors and becomes co-chair of Fox Digital Platforms alongside Cheesbrough, according to the companies' announcement.

Mustafa Ozgen, who had led Roku's devices and product engineering team and is credited with helping grow the platform past 100 million households, was named Roku's new chief executive, adding oversight of the company's advertising products, The Roku Channel, subscriptions and branding to his existing duties. Charlie Collier, who has served as president of Roku Media since 2022 after leaving the top job at Fox Entertainment to join Roku, is exiting the combined company, TheWrap reported, citing the companies. Anjali Sud, Tubi's chief executive since 2023, is also departing after helping manage the transition.

Mike Bidgoli was promoted to president of Tubi, reporting to Pete Distad, Fox's chief executive of direct-to-consumer, who takes on oversight of both Tubi and the subscription service Frndly TV. Several other Roku executives are also leaving the combined company, including general counsel Chris Handman and an advertising-platform executive, Robyn Peterson, while Jeff Dow, an executive vice president overseeing platform and media technology, is set to retire at the end of Fox's fiscal year.

"That mission doesn't change today"

In the companies' joint statement, Fox Executive Chair and Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch said the closing "advances the long-term strategy of FOX" and that the company's immediate priority was to "continue to relentlessly serve audiences and partners," while "reinforcing the openness and choice that is the essence of the Roku platform." Wood, who built Roku from a startup into one of the most widely used streaming platforms in the country, struck a similar note about continuity even as he hands over day-to-day control.

"We started Roku more than two decades ago to give people a better way to watch TV, and that mission doesn't change today," Wood said in the announcement. "What does change is our reach and resources: FOX has a deep respect for Roku's culture and wholly shares our commitment to staying open to every content partner."

When the deal was first announced in June, outside analysts framed it as part of a broader push by legacy broadcasters to capture advertising dollars migrating to streaming. Ross Benes, an analyst at the research firm EMARKETER, told CBS News at the time that "buying Roku is a continuation of Fox's strategy to expand digital ad revenues through acquisition," while cautioning that it "remains to be seen" how smoothly the two companies would combine. That question of integration became more concrete on Friday with the departures of executives who had led Roku's advertising, legal and media businesses.

What comes next

The companies now face the work of merging two large organizations with different cultures — a broadcaster built around live sports and news, and a hardware-and-software platform built around an app marketplace used by rivals including Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon's Prime Video. Fox and Roku have both said publicly that Roku will remain an "open" platform that continues to carry competing streaming services rather than favoring Fox-owned properties, a commitment the companies repeated in Friday's announcement.

Industry watchers who have tracked the broader consolidation wave, including the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery combination cleared by the Justice Department earlier this year, have warned that further concentration in media could squeeze pay for industry workers and reduce choice for advertisers and consumers over time. Fox executives, for their part, have pointed to the $400 million synergy target and the prospect of selling advertising across a larger combined footprint — Fox's broadcast and cable inventory alongside Roku's connected-television reach — as the deal's core rationale.

Roku's next quarterly results, and Fox's first earnings report to include a full quarter of Roku's operations, will offer the first concrete look at how the combination is performing financially. For now, the practical effects are being felt first inside the two companies, as employees absorb a leadership slate that includes several outside names from the former Roku organization and several Fox veterans moving into expanded roles overseeing the platform Roku's founder spent more than twenty years building. Collier's exit carries its own symmetry: he left the top job at Fox Entertainment in 2022 to help build Roku's media business, and now departs the very platform he joined just as it becomes part of Fox once again.