Overview
- Paramount Skydance launched a $30-per-share all-cash tender valuing Warner Bros. Discovery at about $108.4 billion for the entire company, including cable networks such as CNN, TNT and Discovery.
- Netflix holds a board-approved agreement to buy Warner Bros.’ studios and HBO/HBO Max for roughly $72 billion, contingent on WBD spinning off its cable networks into a separate company, Discovery Global.
- Paramount told shareholders its financing is secured and argued its bid offers more cash and a quicker, more certain closing, while Netflix retains matching rights if WBD deems the tender superior.
- President Trump said any sale should require changes at CNN or a divestiture, as questions intensify over Paramount’s backers, including Ellison-family capital, Middle Eastern sovereign funds and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.
- Both paths face extensive antitrust review, and the fight centers on how to value WBD’s declining cable assets, with unions and theater owners warning consolidation could cut jobs, reduce competition and shorten theatrical windows.