Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox tables formal £11.7bn bid for Sky

Broadcasting giant Sky have received a formal takeover from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, which would see the latter become the most powerful media group in Britain.

The Australian mogul's company tabled a formal £11.7bn bid for the 61% stake in the FTSE 100-listed telecoms group it does not already own, meaning Fox has not raised the £10.75 per share offer it tabled on Friday.

"It creates a global leader in content creation and distribution, enhances our sports and entertainment scale, and gives us unique and leading direct-to-consumer capabilities and technologies," said a spokesman for Fox.

However, the US group will now need to receive regulatory approval for the deal, which values Sky at over £18bn and would give Fox control of pay-TV operations in the UK, Ireland, Austria, Germany and Italy.

Sky has 22 million customers across the five countries and Murdoch, whose son James is both chairman of Sky and chief executive of Fox, abandoned a takeover attempt in 2011 in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

"We are excited to bring Sky fully into 21st Century Fox," said 21st Century Fox executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch.

"Partial ownership of Sky was not natural end state for us. Fully combining the businesses is a clear logical next step of protfolio evolution. It adds the strength of the Sky brand to our portfolio including Fox, National Geographic and Star brands.

"Considering the complete set of options in respect of capital allocation this transaction provides most attractive returns of for 21st Century Fox shareholders."

Culture Secretary Karen Bradley has 10 working days to decided whether to refer the deal to Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, over public interest concerns. Should she choose to do so, the watchdog will then have up to 40 working days to file its public interest report on the deal.

However, James Murdoch said he expected the deal to be approved by the regulator.

"There are various bits and pieces to the European [regulatory] timeline and if necessary the UK timeline with the department of culture, media and sport and Ofcom having to make a number of decisions in the next little while," he added.

Last week, Sky's directors recommended the offer but faced criticism from some shareholders, who claimed the offer undervalued the company.