Paramount Skydance says it’s making a hostile bid for Warner Bros, challenging Netflix’s $72bn buyout plan.
Paramount, which lost to Netflix in a bidding war, said Monday that it is going straight to Warner Bros shareholders with a $30 per share in cash offer for the entirety of Warner Bros Discovery, including its Global Networks segment, asking them to reject the deal with Netflix.
Netflix said Friday that it sealed a blockbuster deal to buy Warner Bros by offering $27.75 per share, which will see each WBD shareholder receive $23.25 in cash and $4.50 in shares of Netflix common stock.
On top of that, Netflix is offering a $5.8bn reverse breakup fee if government regulators do not approve the deal, which topped the $5bn that David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance had offered in its latest bid before the announcement.
On Sunday, president Donald Trump said that a deal struck by Netflix to buy Warner Bros Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share.
“There’s no question about it,” Trump said, answering questions about the deal and various other topics as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors.
The Republican president said he will be involved in the decision about whether the federal government should approve the $72bn deal.
If approved by regulators, the merger would put two of the world’s biggest streaming services under the same ownership and join Warner’s television and motion picture division, including DC Studios, with Netflix’s vast library and its production arm.
The deal, which could reshape the entertainment industry, has to “go through a process and we'll see what happens,” Trump said.
“Netflix is a great company. They’ve done a phenomenal job. Ted is a fantastic man,” he said of Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, noting that they met in the Oval Office last week before the deal was announced 5 December. “I have a lot of respect for him, but it’s a lot of market share, so we’ll have to see what happens.”
Asked if Netflix should be allowed to buy the Hollywood giant behind Harry Potter and HBO Max, the president said, “Well, that’s the question.”
“They have a very big market share and when they have Warner Bros, you know, that share goes up a lot so, I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll be involved in that decision, too. But they have a very big market share.”
Sarandos made no guarantees at their meeting about the merger if it is approved, Trump said, adding that the CEO is a “great person” who has “done one of the greatest jobs in the history of movies and other things”.
He repeated that a merger would create a “big market share” for the company.
“There’s no question about it. It could be a problem,” Trump said.
