Paramount Skydance escalated its hostile takeover bid of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) today by filing a lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court against WBD, declaring its intention to fight Netflix’s acquisition.

In December, WBD agreed to sell its streaming and movie businesses to Netflix for $82.7 billion. The deal would see WBD’s Global Networks division, composed of WBD's legacy cable networks, spun out into a separate company called Discovery Global. But in December, Paramount submitted a hostile takeover bid and amended its bid for WBD. Subsequently, the company has aggressively tried to convince WBD’s shareholders that its $108.4 billion offer for all of WBD is superior to the Netflix deal.

Today, Paramount CEO David Ellison wrote a letter to WBD shareholders informing them of Paramount’s lawsuit. The lawsuit requests the court to force WBD to disclose “how it valued the Global Networks stub equity, how it valued the overall Netflix transaction, how the purchase price reduction for debt works in the Netflix transaction, or even what the basis is for its ‘risk adjustment’” of Paramount’s $30 per share all-cash offer. Netflix’s offer equates to $27.72 per share, including $23.25 in cash and shares of Netflix common stock. Paramount hopes the information will encourage more WBD shareholders to tender their shares under Paramount's offer by the January 21 deadline.

Read full article

Comments

The Warner Bros. Discovery board has unanimously voted to rebuff Paramount's $108.4 billion offer and urged shareholders to reject the hostile takeover bid. The board is continuing to support Netflix's pending $82.7 billion purchase of its streaming and movie studios businesses along with a separate spinoff of the Warner Bros. cable TV division.

Warner Bros. called the Paramount bid "illusory" in a presentation for shareholders today, saying the offer requires an "extraordinary amount of debt financing" and other terms that make it less likely to be completed than a Netflix merger. It would be the largest leveraged buyout ever, "with $87B of total pro forma gross debt," and is "effectively a one-sided option for PSKY [Paramount Skydance] as the offer can be terminated or amended by PSKY at any time," Warner Bros. said.

The Warner Bros. presentation touted Netflix's financial strength while saying that Paramount "is a $14B market cap company with a 'junk' credit rating, negative free cash flows, significant fixed financial obligations, and a high degree of dependency on its linear business." The Paramount "offer is illusory as it cannot be completed before it is currently scheduled to expire," Warner Bros. said.

Read full article

Comments

We’re far from streaming’s original promise: instant access to beloved and undiscovered titles without the burden of ads, bundled services, or price gouging that have long been associated with cable.

Still, every year we get more dependent on streaming for entertainment. Despite streaming services’ flaws, many of us are bound to keep subscribing to at least one service next year. Here’s what we can expect in 2026 and beyond.

Subscription prices keep rising, but perhaps not as expected

There’s virtually no hope of streaming subscription prices plateauing in 2026. Streaming companies continue to face challenges as content production and licensing costs rise, and it's often easier to get current customers to pay slightly more than to acquire new subscribers. Meanwhile, many streaming companies are still struggling with profitability and revenue after spending years focusing on winning subscribers with content.

Read full article

Comments