Amazon Closes $6.5B MGM Acquisition

Amazon has closed on its $6.5 billion acquisition of movie and TV studio MGM, the company announced Thursday (March 17).

As The Wall Street Journal reports, the deal is Amazon’s second largest — following its $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods in 2017. It gives the company access to a library of 4,000 movies — including the James Bond films — and 17,000 episodes of television, providing it with a better position to compete against rivals like Netflix and Disney+.

Read more: EU Gives Amazon the OK for the $6.5B MGM Deal

Under the terms of the acquisition, MGM will become part of Amazon’s Prime Video and Studios unit, overseen by Senior Vice President Mike Hopkins. Amazon has said it doesn’t plan layoffs at the studio.

“MGM has a nearly century-long legacy of producing exceptional entertainment, and we share their commitment to delivering a broad slate of original films and television shows to a global audience,” Hopkins said in a statement.

Founded in 1920, MGM has a storied — and rocky — history in Hollywood, producing blockbusters like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone With The Wind.”

The deal came after Amazon demonstrated to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that it had provided all the information requested by antitrust investigators examining the acquisition, turning over more than 3 million documents for review, a source close to the matter told the Journal.

However, the FTC still has the ability to challenge the acquisition, if a majority of the commission votes to do so.

Read also: House Committee: Amazon Obstructed Investigation

The acquisition was approved by European Union antitrust officials on Tuesday, the deadline for approval in the EU. The European Commission said the deal wouldn’t hinder competition, as the two companies don’t necessarily overlap in their production of content.

Still, Amazon remains under serious antitrust scrutiny in the U.S. Last week, a bipartisan group of U.S. representatives called on the Justice Department to investigate the company for what they say is a potential criminal obstruction of a Congressional investigation.

The legislators say Amazon refused to turn over information in an investigation to its competitive practices to mask what they say was a lie about how the company treats third-party sellers. Amazon has said there is no basis for the lawmaker’s claims, and that the company has been cooperating with the investigation.