The decision to pull Hulu off the auction block has left its owners in a quandary. What do they do now?
Those owners are News Corporation, Providence Equity Partners, The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal and the Hulu senior management team. A Wall Street Journal story says one option being considered is to get another media company to join the venture, such as Time Warner. That would help if Providence Equity Partners exercises its option to be bought out in about a year.
Another option would be returning to the idea of selling stock to the public. Hulu’s owners explored the possibility of an IPO last year, but shelved the idea and then put the company up for sale in June. Now, according to Bloomberg-Businessweek, the IPO idea may be back on the table. Needham & Co. analyst Laura Martin was quoted as saying that cash from an IPO would help Hulu compete with Netflix and Amazon for programming,
