Sky investor Crispin Odey says he now opposes Fox takeover

[November 07, 2017]  LONDON (Reuters) - Veteran hedge fund manager Crispin Odey now opposes Twenty-First Century Fox’s 11.7 billion pound ($15.4 billion) bid to take control of British pay-TV broadcaster Sky  in a move that could raise further doubts about the deal.

Odey, whose firm is Sky’s 17th biggest investor with a 0.9 percent stake, according to Thomson Reuters data, believes that Fox’s 10.75 pound-a-share bid "starts to look like it's not a very good price" for the broadcaster.

"I'd vote against the deal," Odey told Reuters, when asked how he would vote on the offer. He added: "The interesting thing is: can Sky survive happily without Fox? I think it can quite happily."

Odey initially said he backed the Fox bid to acquire the 61 percent of Sky that it does not already own, which was first announced in December.

However, in August he told Reuters that he thought the offer was beginning to "look rather mean", although he did not say at the time that he would oppose the takeover.

(Reporting by Ben Martin; editing by Jason Neely)

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