NBCUniversal: a solid deal past its prime

Versant Media

28/07/2026 13:00

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions
expressed are her own.)
    By Jennifer  Saba
    NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Comcast
 CMCSA.O  boss Brian Roberts can be somewhat proud as a peacock.
Although his cable operator's acquisition of NBCUniversal from
General Electric 15 years ago hasn't panned out as planned,
there's at least value to be salvaged.
During the depths of the financial crisis in 2009, GE raised
much-needed cash by selling Comcast 51% ownership in
NBCUniversal and its studios, TV networks and theme park
businesses. Comcast paid $6.2 billion upfront while throwing in
the Golf Channel and other networks, at a $7.3 billion
valuation. It exercised an option in 2013 to buy the rest for
$18 billion.
Roberts declared it a “perfect fit,” giving subscribers
programming “anytime, anywhere.” In the years that followed,
however, Netflix  NFLX.O , Amazon.com  AMZN.O  and Apple
 AAPL.O  blazed the online streaming trail, forcing incumbents
to follow. Comcast's business model made less and less sense,
and the company unveiled plans last month to cleave itself.
    As a standalone enterprise, NBCUniversal should be worth
more now. The business, which includes the studio behind “The
Odyssey” and the new Universal Epic destination in Orlando is
expected to generate nearly $4 billion in EBITDA this year,
according to Visible Alpha. Using Walt Disney’s  DIS.N 
valuation multiple of 10 times suggests NBC Universal is worth
$40 billion.
    Add the $9 billion Disney paid Comcast for its stake in
streaming service Hulu. Versant Media  VSNT.O , the cable
networks enterprise spun off in January, is worth another $7
billion. Altogether, before factoring in European pay-TV
business Sky, NBCUniversal is worth nearly $55 billion, almost
twice the original figure.
    Over the 13 years Comcast fully owned NBCUniversal, it
generated some $85 billion in adjusted EBITDA while chewing up
about $28 billion of capital expenditure, nearly half of it in
recent years to fund theme-park expansion. Another $4 billion or
so went to capitalizing software and intangibles. The sum stacks
up reasonably well against the $24 billion of cash Comcast spent
to buy the business. Crudely putting the initial outlay against
today's theoretical valuation implies a roughly 6% annualized
return.
    There's evidence Roberts held on too long. After five years
of owning NBCUniversal, the parent company's 95% total
shareholder return, including reinvested dividends, was on par
with the S&P 500 Index  .SPX . Fast forward to today, and
Comcast's 67% pales next to the broader market's 500%. It's a
reminder that big deals that succeed financially, even
strategically sensible ones, are a rare bird.
Follow Jennifer Saba on Bluesky and LinkedIn.
     
    CONTEXT NEWS
    Comcast said on July 23 that second-quarter revenue from its
NBCUniversal media and theme park properties increased 23% from
a year earlier to $10.7 billion, partly boosted by the FIFA
World Cup broadcast. Its streaming service Peacock also reported
its first profit, of $189 million.
    The cable operator unveiled plans on June 29 to split into
two publicly traded ​companies using a tax-free spinoff of
NBCUniversal and Sky.

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(Editing by Jeffrey Goldfarb; Production by Pranav Kiran)
((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can
click on  SABA/ jennifer.saba@thomsonreuters.com))