Paramount Skydance announced on Monday a hostile public offer on Warner Bros. Discovery, proposing $30 per share in cash. This move comes a few days after the agreement signed between Netflix and WBD for the acquisition of Warner Bros. studio and the HBO Max platform, valued at $72 billion. Unlike Netflix, Paramount seeks to acquire the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, including its cable networks such as CNN and TNT Sports, recently excluded from the Netflix deal.
Paramount's offer, identical to that previously rejected by WBD's board, will be directly submitted to shareholders. It is financially backed by the Ellison family, RedBird Capital and a lender consortium led by Bank of America, Citi and Apollo Global Management, with $54bn of debt commitments. Paramount highlights a regulatory process it believes will be smoother, partly due to its smaller size and relations that are deemed more favorable with the Trump administration.
According to CNBC, the current presidential administration is rather reserved about the Netflix-WBD merger, citing increased risks of concentration in the streaming sector. President Donald Trump has said that the operation could face obstacles relating to market dominance. In this context, Paramount Skydance's hostile bid, which asserts it acts in shareholders' interests by maintaining the group's integrity, rekindles the battle around one of Hollywood's last major independent studios. The WBD stock rose about 6% as Wall Street opened, while Paramount Skydance rose about 3%, although Netflix eased slightly.
