The saga of who will wind up with control of Warner Bros. is only getting started. Days after Netflix announced a deal to buy the venerated movie studio and its streaming service, Paramount has launched a hostile takeover bid for the company.
While Netflix only trying to buy the Warner Bros. half of Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount’s bid is for the entire conglomerate, which includes linear cable channels like CNN, TBS, and TNT.
According to The New York Times, “Paramount said it would pay $30 per share in cash, valuing the company at around $108 billion, including debt. It said it was going to shareholders because the board of Warner Bros. Discovery is ‘pursuing an inferior proposal’ that would lead to ‘a challenging regulatory approval process.’”
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Paramount Global CEO David Ellison said of the company’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery…
WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company. Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros. Discovery Board of Directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion. We believe the WBD Board of Directors is pursuing an inferior proposal which exposes shareholders to a mix of cash and stock, an uncertain future trading value of the Global Networks linear cable business and a challenging regulatory approval process. We are taking our offer directly to shareholders to give them the opportunity to act in their own best interests and maximize the value of their shares.
The move isn’t entirely shocking; shortly because Netflix and Warner Bros. announced their deal, a letter from Paramount to Warner Bros. was made public in which the former accused the latter of a “myopic” sale process that “favors a single bidder.”
If for some reason Netflix fails to successfully complete its deal with WBD, it would have to pay the company a $5.8 billion fee. On the flip side, if WBD takes an offer from elsewhere (like Paramount), the company would owe Netflix $2.8 billion. In other words: The stakes are enormous no matter what happens next.
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