LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK—Paramount has launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery with an all-cash tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. for $30.00 per share in cash or about $108.4 billion.
The bid for all of WBD comes just days after the company agreed to sell the Warner Bros. film and TV studios, HBO and Netflix for an enterprise value of about $82.7 billion, with the remaining WBD assets being spun off into a separate publicly traded company.
The Paramount bid touches off what could be a protracted bidding war for the company.
In announcing the bid, Paramount said its offer for the entirety of WBD provides shareholders $18 billion more in cash than the Netflix offer. The deal has the financial backing of the Ellison family and RedBird Capital, along with $54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo, according to Paramount.
It also said that its bid would avoid some of the anti-trust and regulatory issues that could face a Netflix deal. On Dec. 7, President Trump also told reporters that the Netflix deal “could be a problem,” raising concerns that he is likely to be involved in the regulatory review.
Paramount also reported that the “combined business will execute on a $6+ billion cost synergy opportunity, in addition to the more than $3 billion in standalone cost efficiencies that Paramount expects to achieve in its current transformation plans,” indicating that the deal could result in substantial layoffs.
David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Paramount, said: "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 maximize the value of their shares."
Paramount said the all-cash offer at $30.00 per share, equates “to an enterprise value of $108.4 billion, which represents a 139% premium to the undisturbed WBD stock price of $12.54 as of September 10, 2025. In contrast, the Netflix proposal entails a volatile and complex structure valued at $27.75 mix of cash ($23.25) and stock ($4.50), subject to collar and the future performance of Netflix, equating to an enterprise value of $82.7 billion.”
