SiriusXM agreed to buy the Stitcher podcast business from Scripps for $265 million cash, said the satellite company Monday. It “will advance and deepen SiriusXM's position in podcasting, the fastest-growing sector in the audio entertainment ecosystem,” it said. SiriusXM agreed to make up to $60 million more in “additional contingent payments” to Scripps if Stitcher achieves unspecified “financial metrics” this year and next, it said. The deal will better position SiriusXM “to advance the podcast ad market,” it said: Q3 closing hinges on required regulatory approvals and other conditions..

Sony will make a $250 million “strategic investment” for a minority interest in Epic Games, said the companies Thursday. Epic operates the Fortnite online videogame platform claimed to be the world’s largest, with 350 million accounts. The deal's closing hinges on regulatory approvals and other conditions.

Velodyne and Graf Industrial, a blank check company, agreed to move Velodyne into Graf as a subsidiary, they said Thursday. The transaction is being structured as a reverse merger where existing Velodyne shareholders will own the majority, blogged Velodyne Lidar Thursday. Current Velodyne shareholders, including Velodyne founder David Hall and investors Ford, Baidu, Nikon and Hyundai, will retain ownership of more than 80%. Implied market capitalization is expected to be about $1.8 billion. Hall will be executive chairman. Management will include CEO Anand Gopalan, Chief Financial Officer Drew Hamer and Chief Marketing Officer Marta Hall. The transaction will be funded with a $150 million committed private investment in public equity and is expected to leave Velodyne with about $200 million cash. The transaction is expected to close in Q3. Graf will be renamed Velodyne Lidar and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under VLDR.

Dish Network entered the retail wireless business after completing its $1.4 billion purchase of Sprint's Boost Mobile (see 2007010017), it said Wednesday. Some 9.3 million customers are involved, T-Mobile said. Dish's buy of Sprint's prepaid business was a government condition for T-Mobile's Sprint acquisition. "T-Mobile followed through on fulfilling one of the most significant commitments we made as part of this merger process," said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. "Today’s action is a key step towards promoting vigorous competition in the wireless marketplace, particularly for price-conscious consumers in our nation’s cities," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. "With this divestiture and its existing spectrum resources, DISH has the potential to make a big impact on a wireless marketplace that is transitioning to 5G." Pai vowed to stay vigilant to ensure "T-Mobile and DISH comply in the coming months and years" with FCC conditions. Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim said: “This deal is a significant milestone in realizing" DOJ’s remedy "designed to strengthen competition for high-quality 5G networks.” Dish said it will keep the Boost brand, and reinstituted a popular payment plan that Boost ended six years ago. Dish said its "$hrink-It!" plan starts at $45 monthly for 15 GB and goes down by $5 after three on-time payments and another $5 after six. Dish is introducing a $35 monthly 10 GB plan. Bill Ho, analyst at 556 Ventures, said he's optimistic about Dish's short-term prospects in wireless provided it spends to keep prepaid customers. Companies "can buy any customer," he said, but it takes subsidies to keep them or gain new ones. Incompas CEO Chip Pickering predicted Dish will price Boost competitively and succeed at keeping and building that customer base and could use the cash flow to help fund its 5G network. Pickering said the prepaid mobile business is more valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic because there's more demand for low-cost service and new public policy in the works to subsidize it. New Street's Blair Levin expected Dish will attempt to "leapfrog" competitors with new technology and spectrum capacity when it transitions to its own 5G network. The Utility Reform Network, "always happy to see a new competitor," remains skeptical whether Dish can competitively affect the facilities-based market, said Managing Director Christine Mailloux.

The first joint DOJ/FTC vertical merger guidelines, issued Tuesday, should give more transparency and predictability about how government views such deals, DOJ said. It said the agencies might apply both horizontal and vertical merger guidelines in a deal evaluation since transactions often present elements of both. It said when agencies identify a potential competitive concern in a relevant market, they will also specify one or more related products. It said the guidelines identify conditions under which a vertical combination wouldn't require an extensive investigation because the deal wouldn't create or enhance the combined firm's ability or incentive to hurt rivals. TechFreedom said while the new guidelines recognize vertical deals can be pro-competition and reject creating a presumption against vertical combinations in the tech sector, they also "create substantial uncertainty by eliminating a safe harbor for smaller vertical mergers.” The American Antitrust Institute said including the safe harbor “would have impaired vertical merger enforcement,” but the guidelines don't provide guidance supporting strong enforcement, such as a presumption certain vertical combos are likely to harm competition but rebuttable by evidence that the deal wouldn't enhance market power.

Amazon agreed to buy self-driving vehicle company Zoox to bring “autonomous ride-hailing to reality,” it blogged Friday. Amazon’s financial muscle will “markedly accelerate” Zoox’s path to market with “safe, clean and enjoyable” autonomous vehicles that deliver a "revolutionary passenger experience," said Chief Technology Officer Jesse Levinson. Zoox CEO Aicha Evans and Levinson continue in their roles. This follows Amazon’s autonomous vehicle investments in Aurora and Rivian, with Amazon saying it would order 100,000 Rivian delivery vans for rollout next year, Cowen's John Blackledge wrote investors. Though Zoox is focused on ride-hailing, “the technology could ostensibly be repurposed for Last Mile package delivery,” said the analyst. He cited a big area of Amazon investment “as it scales over time and focuses on 1-Day delivery for Prime members.”

SiriusXM said Wednesday buying podcast management platform Simplecast, combined with the acquirer's AdsWizz, lets creators publish and generate revenue. Simplecast and AdsWizz will form SiriusXM’s publisher solution business. Sirius has Pandora for Podcasters, it noted.

The antitrust community has too strong a bias against enforcement, leaving unchallenged mergers and acquisitions that ought to be challenged, said former DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Bill Baer, now a Brookings Institution fellow. "We need to move that arrow back to a neutral position," he said on an American Antitrust Institute podcast Monday. Some courts are showing a "worrisome" level of skepticism in government cases and implicitly demanding a higher level of proof than the statute requires, he said.

T-Mobile and Dish Network appear to be struggling to work out a deal on the sale of Boost, a step required as part of government’s approval of T-Mobile buying Sprint. Dish is supposed to buy Boost for $1.4 billion. T-Mobile has until July 1 to close the sale under an April 1 consent decree (see 2004010069). They are also still negotiating lease terms for T-Mobile’s use of Dish’s 600 MHz spectrum. “We believe that both parties remain focused on getting the deal done,” Citi’s Michal Rollins told investors last week: “There are pre-conditions that New T-Mobile has to satisfy before the transaction could be completed.” The analyst noted Dish disclosed the use of a mediator for the negotiations. “While we hear reports of T-Mobile potentially selling Boost to others, we don’t see that contemplated by the DOJ or FCC documents and we think such a sale would undermine the arguments the federal government entities made to the courts and the public about creating a fourth competitor,” New Street’s Blair Levin said Friday. “DISH likely believes it will have to buy Boost to get the extension and will act accordingly,” Levin said: “While we think it could litigate the issue, the risk of losing is sufficiently high, and the potential cost of being denied the extension would be far greater than the cost of buying Boost.” Dish and T-Mobile declined comment.

TCL Electronics Holdings said Thursday it will spend up to $409 million to double its stake in Brazil-based joint venture SEMP TCL to 80% via subsidiary TCL NL. It cited the “tremendous market potential” for selling competitively priced TVs in Brazil, the fifth-largest market by population.