Dreamworks Animation Skg Inc (NASDAQ:DWA) and Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:DWA) have had a controversial merger that Chinese regulators are not too happy about.
The combined company is facing an antitrust probe from the Asian country due to concerns over the effect it will have on local companies. Regulators believe that Comcast’s acquisition of Dreamworks is creating a monopoly in the industry that will be detrimental to the rest of the industry.
“We will probe into the case based on anti-monopoly laws,” said Shen Danyang, a spokesman from China’s Ministry of Commerce. The briefing did not go into detail about what exactly their concerns stem from.
Comcast officially acquired DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion back in April. U.S. regulators had no concerns over the move, approving it in June due to the fact that there were no antitrust concerns statewide.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal spearheads the DreamWorks branch of the company. The latter has a 45% stake in Oriental DreamWorks, which is located in Shanghai.The statement also included concerns over the proposed $35 million union of Uber and Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride company that is is similar to the former.
Comcast is the N0. 2 cable provider in the U.S. Other than NBC, it also owns a variety of networks including affiliates CNBC and MSNBC. The company has more than 22 million subscribers.
DWA stock is up 0.1% Friday, while CMCSA shares rose 0.3%.
