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Amazon has agreed to buy the MGM movie studio for $6.5 billion in equity and $1.95 billion in debt, Amazon has announced.
The deal is Amazon’s second-largest acquisition, the Wall Street Journal reported; the company paid $13.7 billion in 2017 to buy Whole Foods Market, Inc.
The purchase will bring vast new content to Amazon’s Prime streaming service to make it more competitive with Netflix, Disney+, and Discovery’s newly expanded offerings now that Discovery has purchased a controlling interest in Time Warner from AT&T.
Also recently, Walt Disney Co. bought most of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets and Viacom re-merged into CBS.
The MGM deal re-energized critics of Amazon’s growing power to buy major positions in industries.
“This acquisition has the power to impact millions of consumers,” Senator Amy Klobuchar said in a public statement. “The Department of Justice must conduct a thorough investigation to ensure that this deal won’t risk harming competition.”
TREND FORECAST: We note this article to again illustrate how the Bigs keep getting bigger and competition in numerous sectors continues to decline. And with the Big few owning the most, there will be less diversity in products and services, since, without competition, there is less need for innovation and creativity.