General Electric has announced this week that they have invested $105 million into Pivotal, a platform-as-a-service. Pivotal is a company that has developed a next generation Enterprise Platform-as-a-Service that makes it possible for employees of the enterprise to rapidly create consumer-grade applications.
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Comcast announced this week that they will be buying the remaining stake in NBCUniversal for $16.7 billion. Comcast also released their Q4 earnings and they have announced a 20% increase in its dividend along with a $2 billion stock repurchase plan.
General Electric is buying 2,000 Ford plug-in hybrid vehicles for their corporate fleet according to statements from both GE and Ford yesterday. GE is buying the Ford C-Max Energi vehicle and Ford will jointly market GE’s alternative fuel infrastructure technology including charging stations and natural gas fueling stations.
In December 2009 Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) made a deal to acquire NBC from General Electric. This deal is facing scrutiny from the government. The FCC said that one of the proposed conditions if they allow the deal to take place is that NBC would no longer have the exclusive rights to their shows on the Internet. This means that Hulu would not be the only web video service that has the rights to stream NBC shows. The three owners in Hulu are NBC, ABC, and FOX. [AllThingsD]
General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) has acquired Opal Software, a company that designs engineering software for electric, gas, and water utilities. Opal’s software can quickly migrate data between multiple platforms. GE software can also be integrated into non-GE systems using Opal’s software.
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French media company Vivendi has sold its stake in NBC to G.E. for $2 billion. Vivendi had owned 20% of the broadcasting company. After Comcast completes its acquisition of NBC, Vivendi will sell the remaining 12.34% it owns to G.E. for $3.8 billion. Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy said that the company can use the sale of NBC to buy 100% of telecommunications operator company SFR. Vivendi owns 56% of SFR. [NYT]
Comcast may be the new majority shareholder in NBC, but General Electric has promised to buy about $345 million worth of ads from the TV network over the next 5 years. About $59 million will be spent each year, adding up to the $345 million. GE will also buy $50 million worth of 2012 Olympic Games ads. NBC owns the rights to the 2012 Olympic Games broadcast. The financial details of this transaction was revealed on an SEC filing.
Last year, GE spent $1.2 billion for advertising and most of that went towards marketing NBC Universal movies. The filing also revealed that Comcast cannot sell its stake for at least four years and GE cannot sell its stake for at least 3.5 years. After that period of time, Comcast will have the right to buy out NBC completely.
Comcast agreed to pay $6.5 billion in cash along with $7.25 billion in assets to gain control of NBC. The whole deal was valued at about $30 billion.
Comcast Corporation and General Electric has entered an agreement that would give Comcast the controlling interest in NBC Universal Inc. Comcast is paying $6.5 billion in cash and the cable company agreed NBC to maintain its editorial independence for NBC News. Comcast is also currently negotiating buying NBC Universal as a whole. To appease shareholders further, Comcast agreed to pay the annual cash dividend to 40% which is almost $0.38 per share next year.
Comcast said that the merger makes them “strategically complete.” Comcast said that the reason why for buying NBC was because the network owned highly profitable TV channels such as USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, and Syfy. Comcast will own 51% of NBC. The deal values NBC at about $30 billion.
“This deal is a perfect fit for us,” stated Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. “We are honored that under this agreement Comcast would take over stewardship of this important collection of assets and are absolutely committed to investing in NBCU and ensuring that it is a vibrant, financially strong company able to thrive in a rapidly evolving marketplace by delivering innovative programming.”
