Back in 2022, management advisor company McKinsey told Warner Bros that the media giant should combine itself with factual production specialist Discovery. The advice resulted in a reported fee of $55 million (€47.6m) for McKinsey. But in the period 2022-2025 McKinsey benefitted by another $37 million for advice issued to the now combined Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) to change its pay-TV channel HBO to HBO Max, then to Max, then back to HBO Max.

So far so good, and few could argue that listed companies need the comfort of solid professional advice in order to minimise shareholder complaints.

But this year, to date, according to reports, McKinsey has billed WBD an additional $63 million to cover the advice, including research and detailed consultation, that Warner Bros Discovery should now separate and be split into two companies.

Of course, the ultimate aim could be to float off Discovery in an IPO and generating value for WBD as well as existing shareholders.

Read Nick Snow’s Completely Mad Max blog.

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Categories: Articles, Business

Tags: HBO, MAX, mckinsey, warner bros, WBD