WBD tells shareholders Netflix deal is superior to Paramount offer: 'It was not a hard choice,' chairman tells CNBC

Source: CNBC

Published Wed, Dec 17 2025 7:07 AM EST Updated 9 Min Ago


The Warner Bros. Discovery board on Wednesday said it unanimously recommended that WBD shareholders reject a takeover offer from Paramount Skydance and stick with a “superior” proposal from Netflix. Last week, Paramount launched a hostile bid for WBD, taking a $30-per-share, all-cash offer directly to shareholders. Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has argued the deal, which equates to an enterprise value of $108.4 billion, is better than Netflix’s and that a Paramount-WBD combination would have better chances of winning regulatory approval.

“Following a careful evaluation of Paramount’s recently launched tender offer, the Board concluded that the offer’s value is inadequate, with significant risks and costs imposed on our shareholders,” Samuel Di Piazza, chair of the Warner Bros. Discovery board, said in a news release.

“This offer once again fails to address key concerns that we have consistently communicated to Paramount throughout our extensive engagement and review of their six previous proposals,” Di Piazza said. “We are confident that our merger with Netflix represents superior, more certain value for our shareholders and we look forward to delivering on the compelling benefits of our combination.”

The WBD board noted the Paramount bid includes more than $40 billion of financing that is separate from the Ellison family despite Paramount claiming the funding has a “full backstop” from the family. On Tuesday, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners exited its involvement in the bid, which also includes roughly $24 billion from Gulf state sovereign wealth funds.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/17/wbd-board-paramount-skydance-reject-value.html

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REFERENCE (new) - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143583781


An old-school tech bro (with his still learning-on-the-job artsy son) are trying to do THIS (Paramount-SkyDance is most likely infused with Oracle $$$), do TikTok (Oracle is a major player in gaining ownership of TikTok after it has continued to operate illegally this past year without the repeal of the law that required them to "sell" or "be banned" ), AND trying to jump into serving the AI market.

And as I was drafting this, I found this from Bloomberg that came across the wire within the past hour or so -