{"id":11857,"date":"2025-12-08T16:34:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/paramount-makes-a-108-billion-hostile-takeover-bid-for-warner-bros-discovery\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T16:34:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:34:52","slug":"paramount-makes-a-108-billion-hostile-takeover-bid-for-warner-bros-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/paramount-makes-a-108-billion-hostile-takeover-bid-for-warner-bros-discovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount makes a $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Paramount has been none too pleased about Netflix striking an $82.7 billion deal to buy much of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Now, Paramount is making a hostile takeover bid for WBD. It&rsquo;s making its pitch directly to WBD shareholders with an all-cash offer of $30 per share that expires on January 8.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Late last week, the WBD board unanimously accepted Netflix&rsquo;s offer of $27.75 per share. That breaks down to $23.25 per share in cash and another $4.50 per share in Netflix stock. Netflix&rsquo;s overall bid is valued at $82.7 billion, while Paramount&rsquo;s totals $108.4 billion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There&rsquo;s a key difference when it comes to the Paramount offer, as it&rsquo;s for all of WBD. The latter is scheduled to split into two companies next year. Netflix only wants the Streaming and Studios side of WBD&rsquo;s business, which includes HBO Max and the Warner Bros. film, TV and game studios.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_53ipqtialuknpfmlbH1_\">\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Paramount is after the whole shebang, including WBD&rsquo;s cable channels (Global Networks). &ldquo;WBD&rsquo;s Board of Directors recommendation of the Netflix transaction over Paramount&rsquo;s offer is based on an illusory prospective valuation of Global Networks that is unsupported by the business fundamentals and encumbered by high levels of financial leverage assigned to the entity,&rdquo; Paramount said in a press release on Monday.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">As of the end of September, WBD was carrying $34.5 billion of gross debt. It planned to saddle the Global Networks company (aka Discovery Global) with most of that. The Paramount offer includes $40.7 billion in financing from the family of Paramount CEO David Ellison &mdash; his father is Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison &mdash; and RedBird Capital, but it would be taking on more debt to secure a deal for WBD. The bid includes &ldquo;$54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo.&rdquo; (Apollo owns a majority stake in Yahoo, Engadget&rsquo;s parent company).<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">According to an SEC filing [PDF], other entities are backing the Paramount bid, including Jared Kushner&rsquo;s investment firm Affinity Partners and the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia (the Public Investment Fund), Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Tencent was a financing partner in a previous Paramount offer, but it&rsquo;s not involved with the hostile takeover attempt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">In a letter sent to WBD CEO David Zazlav before the company accepted Netflix&rsquo;s offer, Paramount questioned the &ldquo;fairness and adequacy&rdquo; of the sale process. It asked whether WBD was acting in the best interest of shareholders after the management team allegedly appeared to favor the Netflix offer.<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-fullbleed mb-4 bg-marshmallow pb-5 dark:bg-ramones md:invisible md:mb-0 md:h-0 md:overflow-hidden md:pb-0\">\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-nowrap justify-center\">\n<div class=\"flex\" id=\"_R_6bipqtialuknpfmlbH1_\">\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">&ldquo;Despite Paramount submitting six proposals over the course of 12 weeks, WBD never engaged meaningfully with these proposals which we believe deliver the best outcome for WBD shareholders,&rdquo; Paramount said. &ldquo;Paramount has now taken its offer directly to WBD shareholders and its Board of Directors to ensure they have the opportunity to pursue this clearly superior alternative.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Paramount &mdash; which Skydance bought for $8 billion this year &mdash; also claims that its offer is likely to face less regulatory scrutiny than the Netflix offer, which wouldn&rsquo;t close until sometime after WBD splits in two later in 2026. According to <em>CNBC<\/em>, Paramount executives believe that the company&rsquo;s smaller size and cozy relationship with the Trump administration will help streamline the regulatory process. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump said that Netflix&rsquo;s bid for WBD has &ldquo;got to go through a process, and we&rsquo;ll see what happens. But it is a big market share. It could be a problem.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\"><strong>Update December 8, 2025, 11:14AM ET:<\/strong> Added details about the involvement of sovereign wealth funds and Affinity Partners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub>Paramount makes a $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paramount has been none too pleased about Netflix striking an $82.7 billion deal to buy much of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Now, Paramount is making a hostile takeover bid for WBD. It&rsquo;s making its pitch directly to WBD shareholders with an all-cash offer of $30 per share that expires on January 8. Late last week,&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/paramount-makes-a-108-billion-hostile-takeover-bid-for-warner-bros-discovery\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Paramount makes a $108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}