Warner Bros. Discovery said Tuesday that it would restart talks with Paramount Skydance over a deal for Paramount to buy the company, even as Warner’s board recommended that shareholders vote to approve Netflix’s offer to buy its streaming and studio businesses.
The Warner Bros. Discovery board unanimously recommended that shareholders vote to ratify the Netflix deal during a special shareholders meeting next month, reiterating that the Netflix deal “offers superior value and certainty.” But the company also said that Netflix had granted it a seven-day waiver to resume discussions with Paramount Skydance” to seek a best and final offer.”
“Throughout the entire process, our sole focus has been on maximizing value and certainty for WBD shareholders,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a statement. “We are engaging with [Paramount Skydance] now to determine whether they can deliver an actionable, binding proposal that provides superior value and certainty for WBD shareholders through their best and final offer.”
Netflix struck a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery in December to buy Warner’s studio and streaming businesses for more than $80 billion, with Warner planning to spin off its TV networks into a separate company. Since then, Paramount Skydance has mounted a hostile bid to buy all of Warner Bros., even as Warner has raised questions about the financing behind the Paramount bid and maintained that Netflix’s offer is a better and more certain one for shareholders.
Paramount has improved the terms of its offer multiple times, though it has not increased the amount per share it is offering to pay. Warner Bros. signaled that was changing, saying Tuesday that Paramount had informed Warner “it would agree to pay $31 per share, a price not yet reflected in its latest written proposal.”
The fight for Warner Bros. has been the subject of intense corporate and political wrangling in recent months, amid antitrust and other concerns.
Warner Bros. Discovery stock rose about 2.5% in premarket trading on Tuesday. Paramount Skydance stock was up about 3%, and Netflix stock ticked up about 1%.
