TV Home Forum

BSkyB buys Amstrad

Alan Sugar's firm sold for £125m (July 2007)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
SP
Spencer
From MediaGuardian...

Quote:
Sir Alan Sugar's Amstrad group has accepted the terms of a £125m takeover bid from BSkyB in a deal that will see the star of The Apprentice collect £34.5m.

The 150p a share cash offer, which took the market by surprise this morning, has been accepted by the board of Amstrad including founder Sir Alan, who holds 27.6% of the company.

--- 8< ---

Amstrad is a major supplier of set-top boxes to Sky, and Sky is by far Amstrad's largest customer, accounting for some 75% of its revenues last year.

Sky said the acquisition will provide it with an in-house design and development capability, which will deliver "significant" cost savings.

It will also give the group greater control over product design and allow it to accelerate product development.


I can imagine the bosses of Pace and Thomson won't be pleased at this news.

I wonder if this will mean all Sky Digiboxes will eventually become Amstrads in the future. I hope not, unless this move means Sky ups the level of quality of Amstrad boxes, which have had probably the worst reputation for unreliability of all the makes of Sky boxes.
TV
tvarksouthwest
Great. Yet another British company swallowed up by Murdoch. What was Sir Alan thinking?
SP
Spencer
I guess he was thinking, "I can make £34.5 million out of this." Wink
TV
tvarksouthwest
As if he needed it. I'm sure there were others he could have sold to rather than this megalomaniac.
SP
Spencer
tvarksouthwest posted:
As if he needed it. I'm sure there were others he could have sold to rather than this megalomaniac.


And risk peeing off his biggest customer?

By the way, there's another article now on MediaGuardian explaining more about the move.
TV
tvarksouthwest
Rupert Murdoch needs a good peeing off, seeing as his buddies in New Labour won't legislate against him.
IS
Inspector Sands
tvarksouthwest posted:
Great. Yet another British company swallowed up by Murdoch. What was Sir Alan thinking?


BSkyB is a British company!

Quote:
As if he needed it. I'm sure there were others he could have sold to rather than this megalomaniac.


Who else would want it? The only reason BSkyB have bought it is because it's Amstrad's biggest customer, the company wasn't on the market.

It's a good business move, BSkyB will now produce the equipment in-house and at cost price

Quote:
Rupert Murdoch needs a good peeing off, seeing as his buddies in New Labour won't legislate against him.


In a free market economy, what sort of legislation would prevent one PLC from buying another PLC?
RO
roo
tvarksouthwest posted:
As if he needed it. I'm sure there were others he could have sold to rather than this megalomaniac.

...Why? Just to make some píssy anti-capitalist statement?

tvarksouthwest posted:
Rupert Murdoch needs a good peeing off, seeing as his buddies in New Labour won't legislate against him.

Personally I'm glad we aren't quite punishing companies for being successful. We just leave that to Europe and their main hobby of beating up Microsoft at every opportunity.
DA
Davidjb Founding member
Spencer For Hire posted:
I can imagine the bosses of Pace and Thomson won't be pleased at this news.


Probably not but this makes good business sense for BSkyB. Am i correct in thinking Amstrad is the sole producer of Sky+ boxes? This could lead eventually to cheaper products from Sky & dare i say it with more quality (although i shall use that term loosely for now). Owning Amstrad opens up yet more oppertunity & product development for Sky. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a new type of Digibox that intergrates everything from your phone to your TV & PC (although we are pretty much already there with that now just on seperate devices).
:-(
A former member
Thats to Murdock he saved LWT!
TI
This Is Granada
Quote:


Probably not but this makes good business sense for BSkyB. Am i correct in thinking Amstrad is the sole producer of Sky+ boxes?


No - I have a brand new Pace sky+ box
NW
nwtv2003
tvarksouthwest posted:
Great. Yet another British company swallowed up by Murdoch. What was Sir Alan thinking?


Murdoch and Sugar worked alot together in the early days of Sky, as it was thanks to Sugar that provided the neccessary equipment to recieve Sky to Murdoch and the public for a good price and helped success both companies.

This move is just good business sense and can save costs over the long term.

Newer posts