Rovi Buys TiVo for $1.1 Billion

Tony Maglio, reporting for The Wrap:

Entertainment technology company Rovi has purchased original DVR service TiVo for $1.1 billion, or $10.70 per share. Talks of such an acquisition heated up last month, and now it’s official — pending customary regulatory approval, of course.

That $10.70 per-share price represents a premium of approximately 40 percent over TiVo’s closing stock price of $7.66 on March 23 — the last trading day prior to media speculation about a possible transaction. It breaks down into $2.75 in cash and $7.95 in the new company’s common stock. Rovi stockholders will have an easy 1-for-1 swap for their own new stock.

The merged firms will be led by Rovi CEO Tom Carson, though it will adopt the TiVo brand as the new company name.

We’ve had a TiVo for the last 16 years. I really hope this isn’t the end of the line for TiVo as we know it. Crazy cool feature they added recently: they index the commercial breaks in many popular shows, and for those shows, you can precisely skip the entire commercial break with one button. Press the button, fun noise plays, and boom, your show is back on.

★ Friday, 29 April 2016