By Greg Morcroft - Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox (NASDAQ:FOXA) offered $80 billion to buy Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) last month and was turned down by the media giant's board, according to a report from CNBC television.
According to the report, which cited unnamed sources, 21st Century Fox offered $85 a share in cash and stock for the company.
Also according to the report's sources, 21st Century Fox would sell Time-Warner's CNN cable network as part of the deal, a move they said would help appease antitrust regulators. However, according the CNBC's source, Murdoch is "determined" to buy Time Warner.
According to another report in the New York Times, at the time the bid was made it represented a 25 percent premium for Time Warner shares.
The Times also reported that 21st Century Fox calculated that the proposed deal would generate at least $1 billion of cost savings by eliminating redundancies in sales and administrative operations.
Murdoch’s name has was attached to Time Warner, which counts CNN, Warner Bros. and dozens of other high profile names among its properties, last month at the annual Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference where industry leaders in media and technology meet in Idaho.
At that time, "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter said on CNN that, “I will eat my remote control, in fact I will eat my copy of the New York Post … if Murdoch becomes the owner of CNN.”