(Reuters) - Twenty First Century Fox Inc's shares rose 8 percent on Wednesday as an approval for AT&T's buyout of Time Warner Inc spurred speculation that Comcast Corp would proceed with an offer for most of the media company's assets.
A federal judge on Tuesday approved AT&T Inc's $85 billion buyout of Time Warner, clearing the path for more such deals in a rapidly changing media industry.
Shares of other telecom and media companies such as Sprint Corp, CBS Corp and Discovery Inc were all up around 4 percent in premarket trading. Time Warner rose about 5 percent.
"The implications of the ruling are more relevant for other potential vertical deals," Simon Flannery, analyst at Morgan Stanley said.
AT&T's stock, however, was down nearly 4 percent, with at least one analyst raising concerns about the debt the company would absorb as part of the deal.
"Time Warner will be a positive for AT&T's income statement, at least initially. But it will be a negative for the balance sheet," said research firm Moffett Nathanson's Craig Moffett, who downgraded the stock to "sell".
"The new AT&T will carry an astounding $249 billion of debt."
(Reporting by Laharee Chatterjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sweta Singh and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)