By Mahi Jain
Paramount, Inc., which is part of the Skydance Corporation, has made a formal offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) at $30.00 a share in cash, which equates to $108.4 billion for the entire company. Paramount describes the offer as a “hostile bid” given it was made just a few days after the WBD Board accepted a different offer for $82.7 billion in cash-stock consideration with Netflix for WBD’s studios and streaming assets only.
Paramount offers a straight cash deal at $30.00 per share to purchase every single thing at Warner Bros (including their global networks containing CNN and Discovery Channel). Whereas Netflix’s offer to buy Warner Bros as well was valued at $27.75 with some of their payment being made up of stock along with cash, but also did not include their linear cable televisions, which need to be spun off first.
The CEO of Paramount, David Ellison, expressed that the public offer represents “superior value and a more straightforward and faster route to completion” when comparing it to what is being presented to the WBD shareholders. He stated that the WBD board has been trying to offer an “inferior proposal”, which puts the shareholders’ value in terms of their ability to sell stock into doubt and creates a problematic environment for WBD because of Netflix’s substantial streaming market share, leading to a difficult path toward regulatory approval.
The funding source for Paramount’s offer is a combination of new equity investment coming from its largest stakeholders, as well as large amounts of debt. Paramount claims that they took their proposal directly to the shareholders of WBD because the Board of Directors of WBD did not “engage meaningfully” on any of Paramount’s previous six submissions. 0
Although WBD has indicated it will consider Paramount’s proposal, the WBD Board has yet to rescind their recommendation for the Netflix deal. Co-CEO of Netflix, Ted Sarandos, stated that Paramount’s hostile approach was “completely anticipated” and remains convinced the Netflix transaction will be completed.
Shareholders of Walgreens Boots Alliance now have a choice following two competing bids from Paramount and Netflix. Paramount has submitted the higher bid as an all-cash offer for the entire company, whereas Netflix has made its bid as a focused media entity. The offer from Paramount will be available until January 8, 2026.