Paramount Skydance launches hostile bid for WBD after Netflix deal

Paramount Skydance Launches a hostile purchase offer Warner Bros. Discovery After losing to Netflix The company said Monday in a months-long bidding war for the old assets.

Paramount will go directly to WBD shareholders with an all-cash offer of $30 per share. This is the same offer that WBD rejected last week and equates to an enterprise value of $108.4 billion.

The offering is backed by equity financing from the Ellison family and private equity firm RedBird Capital as well as $54 billion in debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo Global Management, Paramount said in a press release.

Part of the equity financing comes from external financing partners in the Middle East, including the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, Limad Holding Company of Abu Dhabi, and the Qatar Investment Authority. Another part derives from Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. Kushner is the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.

These partners have agreed to “give up any governance rights,” including board seats, as part of their non-voting equity investments, according to Paramount’s filing. The amendments allow the deal to fall outside the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS.

Paramount shares rose 7% in morning trading Monday. Warner Bros. shares rose. Discovery fell by about 5%, while Netflix shares fell by more than 4%.

“We’re really here to finish what we started,” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday. “We put the company in play.”

Paramount Skydance has begun its search for Warner Bros. Discovery in September, putting in three offers before WBD launched a formal sale that eventually brought in two more bidders.

Netflix on Friday announced a deal to acquire WBD’s studio and streaming assets for a combination of cash and stock, worth $27.75 per WBD share, or $72 billion. Paramount had made offers to buy Warner Bros. Discovery in its entirety, including those assets and the company’s television networks such as CNN and TNT Sports.

“We’re sitting on Wall Street, where cash is still king. We’re offering shareholders $17.6 billion more in cash than the deal they currently signed with Netflix, and we think that when they see what we currently have in our offer, that’s what they’ll vote for,” Ellison said.

Ellison said Monday that he is placing a value of $1 per share on the linear cable assets, which are scheduled to trade as a separate public entity called Discovery Global in mid-2026. WBD executives privately valued the assets at close to $3 per share.

Paramount has repeatedly argued to the WBD board that keeping Warner Bros. Discovery is entirely in the best interests of shareholders.

Ellison said Monday that Paramount submitted a bid on Dec. 1 and received a response from WBD that it needed to make certain adjustments to the bid. When Paramount made the changes and raised its offer to $30 per share, Ellison received no response from WBD CEO David Zaslav, he said.

Ellison said he told Zaslav via text message that $30 per share was not the company’s best and final offer, suggesting the company was willing to make higher bids.

Ellison said the Paramount deal would have a shorter regulatory approval process given the company’s small size and cordial relationship with the Trump administration. He described Trump as a believer in “competition” and said Paramount’s merger with WBD would be “a real competitor to Netflix, a real competitor to Amazon.”

Ellison also threw cold water on Netflix’s chances of gaining regulatory approval.

“Allowing the No. 1 streaming service to merge with the No. 3 streaming service is anticompetitive,” Ellison said.

CNBC reported on Friday that the Trump administration views the deal “with extreme skepticism,” and Trump said on Sunday that market share considerations could pose a “problem.”

Netflix agreed to pay Warner Bros. $5.8 billion. Discovery if the deal is not approved, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday. Warner Bros. said: Discovery said it would pay a $2.8 billion breakup fee if it decided to cancel the deal to pursue a different merger.