Paramount, has made an all-cash offer to for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) at $30 per share, gatecrashing the Netflix deal.  It claims its offer is “superior” to the offer from Netflix and its proposed transaction is for the entirety of WBD, including the Global Networks segment.

Paramount said its “strategically and financially compelling offer to WBD shareholders provides a superior alternative to the Netflix transaction, which offers inferior and uncertain value and exposes WBD shareholders to a protracted multi-jurisdictional regulatory clearance process with an uncertain outcome along with a complex and volatile mix of equity and cash”.

“The Paramount offer for the entirety of WBD provides shareholders $18 billion more in cash than the Netflix consideration. WBD’s Board of Directors recommendation of the Netflix transaction over Paramount’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,” added the statement.

David Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Paramount, commented: “WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company. Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros. Discovery Board of Directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion. We believe the WBD Board of Directors is pursuing an inferior proposal which exposes shareholders to a mix of cash and stock, an uncertain future trading value of the Global Networks linear cable business and a challenging regulatory approval process. We are taking our offer directly to shareholders to give them the opportunity to act in their own best interests and maximise the value of their shares.”

More to follow…

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Categories: Business, Headline, M&A

Tags: netflix, paramount, skydance, WBD