Paramount Skydance is launching a hostile bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery after it misplaced out to Netflix in a monthslong bidding battle for the legacy property, the corporate mentioned Monday.
Paramount will go straight to WBD shareholders with an all-cash, $30 per share supply. That is the identical bid WBD rejected final week and equates to an enterprise worth of $108.4 billion.
The supply is backstopped with fairness financing from the Ellison household and the non-public fairness agency RedBird Capital in addition to $54 billion in debt commitments from Financial institution of America, Citi and Apollo World Administration, Paramount mentioned in a information launch.
A portion of the fairness financing comes from exterior Center Japanese financing companions together with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Firm PJSC, and the Qatar Funding Authority. One other portion derives from Jared Kushner’s Affinity Companions. Kushner is U.S. President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law.
These companions have agreed to “forgo any governance rights,” together with board seats, as a part of their non-voting fairness funding, based on a Paramount submitting. The modifications enable the deal to be exterior of the jurisdiction of the Committee on International Funding within the U.S., or CFIUS.
Shares of Paramount had been 7% increased in morning buying and selling Monday. Warner Bros. Discovery’s shares had been up about 5% whereas Netflix was down greater than 4%.
“We’re actually right here to complete what we began,” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison informed CNBC’s “Squawk on the Road” on Monday. “We put the corporate in play.”
Paramount Skydance started its hunt for Warner Bros. Discovery in September, submitting three bids earlier than WBD launched a formal sale course of that finally introduced in different suitors.
On Friday, Netflix introduced a deal to accumulate WBD’s studio and streaming property for a mix of money and inventory, valued at $27.75 per WBD share, or $72 billion. Paramount had been bidding for the whole thing of Warner Bros. Discovery, together with these property and the corporate’s TV networks like CNN and TNT Sports activities.
“We’re sitting on Wall Road, the place money continues to be king. We’re providing shareholders $17.6 billion additional cash than the deal they presently have signed up with Netflix, and we imagine once they see what it’s presently in our supply that that is what they will vote for,” Ellison mentioned.
Ellison mentioned Monday he locations a price of $1 per share on the linear cable property, that are set to commerce as a separate public entity referred to as Discovery World in mid-2026. WBD executives have privately valued the property nearer to $3 per share.
Paramount has repeatedly argued to the WBD board of administrators that maintaining Warner Bros. Discovery entire is in the very best curiosity of its shareholders.
Paramount made a bid on Dec. 1 and heard again from WBD that it wanted to make sure alterations to the supply, Ellison mentioned Monday. When Paramount made the modifications and upped its bid to $30 per share, Ellison by no means heard again from WBD CEO David Zaslav, he mentioned.
Ellison mentioned he informed Zaslav by way of textual content message that $30 per share wasn’t the corporate’s greatest and remaining supply, suggesting the corporate is prepared to bid increased nonetheless.
Ellison argued Paramount’s deal may have a shorter regulatory approval course of given the corporate’s smaller measurement and pleasant relationship with the Trump administration. He referred to as Trump a believer “in competitors” and mentioned Paramount’s mixture with WBD will likely be “an actual competitor to Netflix, an actual competitor to Amazon.”
Ellison additionally threw chilly water on Netflix’s probabilities of regulatory approval.
“Permitting the No. 1 streaming service to mix with the No. 3 streaming service is anticompetitive,” Ellison mentioned.
CNBC reported Friday that the Trump administration was viewing the take care of “heavy skepticism,” and Trump mentioned Sunday that the market share concerns may pose a “downside.”
Netflix agreed to pay Warner Bros. Discovery $5.8 billion if the deal shouldn’t be permitted, based on a Securities and Trade Fee submitting Friday. Warner Bros. Discovery mentioned it might pay a $2.8 billion breakup charge if it decides to name off the deal to pursue a unique merger.
