Netflix won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD’s) streaming and movie studio businesses last week. But Paramount Skydance isn’t relenting on its dreams of owning WBD and is pushing forward with a hostile takeover bid.
On Friday, Netflix announced that it had agreed to pay an equity value of $72 billion, or an approximate total enterprise value of $82.7 billion, for WBD’s streaming and film businesses, as well as its film and TV libraries. The deal includes HBO and the HBO Max streaming service but not WBD’s cable channels, which are to be split off ahead of the acquisition into a separate company called Discovery Global. Netflix said WBD’s split should conclude in Q3 2026.
Paramount has different plans, though.
After previously questioning the “fairness and adequacy” of WBD’s bidding process, Paramount announced today that it’s still trying to buy all of WBD, including what is set to become Discovery Global. Its announcement said:
Despite Paramount submitting six proposals over the course of 12 weeks, WBD never engaged meaningfully with these proposals which we believe deliver the best outcome for WBD shareholders. Paramount has now taken its offer directly to WBD shareholders and its Board of Directors to ensure they have the opportunity to pursue this clearly superior alternative.
Paramount said it wants to pay $108.4 billion for WBD, or $30 per share, “which represents a 139 percent premium to the undisturbed WBD stock price of $12.54 as of September 10, 2025.”
It has been reported that WBD rejected Paramount’s bid because WBD thinks it could see more long-term value from separating into two companies than from allowing Paramount to buy all of WBD.
David Ellison, Paramount’s CEO and chairman, in a statement argued that the Netflix deal could hurt WBD’s current shareholders partially due to the “uncertain future trading value of the Global Networks linear cable business. …”