Warner Bros. Discovery Urges Shareholders to Reject Paramount Bid, Back Netflix Deal
Warner Bros.
Key Points
- WBD shares near $30, signaling expectation for Paramount to raise $30/share bid by Jan 8.
- Netflix deal: $27.75/share (cash/stock) for studios & HBO Max, $82.7B total value.
- Paramount's hostile $108B cash bid for entire WBD.
- WGA warns of antitrust breach; Sens. Warren, Sanders, Blumenthal alert DOJ on price hikes.
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) plans to urge its shareholders to reject Paramount's $30-per-share takeover bid and back its existing deal with Netflix instead, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
The recommendation comes as Warner's shares trade near the $30 mark, signaling investor expectations for Paramount to sweeten its offer. Paramount and its CEO, David Ellison, must decide whether to raise the proposal before its deadline on January 8.
Netflix had secured an agreement to acquire Warner's studios and HBO Max streaming service for $27.75 per share in a mix of cash and stock, valuing the deal at $82.7 billion including debt. Paramount then launched a hostile bid worth $108 billion in cash for the entire company.
The contest has intensified scrutiny over market concentration in the US audiovisual sector, already controlled by a handful of conglomerates spanning film, media, TV, and streaming. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has warned that such a merger could breach antitrust laws. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Richard Blumenthal have also alerted the Department of Justice, cautioning that the resulting entity would gain "capacity to raise TV prices amid inflation."
Original Sources
This article was aggregated from the following Catalan-language sources: