Warner Bros asks investors to reject takeover bid from Paramount Skydance

NEW YORK AP Warner Bros is telling shareholders to reject a takeover bid from Paramount Skydance saying that a rival bid from Netflix will be better for customers The Board reviewed Paramount Skydance s majority of latest unsolicited tender offer with the same care and discipline it has applied throughout this process including its review of multiple prior proposals Warner Bros noted Wednesday The Board s evaluation followed a thorough and consistent process and is grounded in its fiduciary duties Paramount went hostile with its bid last week asking shareholders to reject the deal with Netflix favored by the board of Warner Bros Paramount is offering per Warner share to Netflix s Paramount s bid isn t off the table altogether While Wednesday s letter to shareholders means Paramount s is not the offer favored by the board at Warner Bros shareholders can still decide to tender their shares in favor of Paramount s offer for the entire company including cable stalwarts CNN and Discovery Unlike Paramount s bid the offer from Netflix does not include buying the cable operations of Warner Bros An acquisition by Netflix if approved by regulators and shareholders will close only after Warner completes its previously informed separation of its cable operations Paramount has claimed it made six different bids that Warner leadership rejected before announcing its deal with Netflix on Dec Only after that did it take its offer directly to Warner s shareholders Beyond a greenlight from shareholders both takeover bids face tremendous regulatory scrutiny A change in ownership at Warner would drastically reshape the entertainment and media industry impacting movie making consumer streaming platforms and in Paramount s occurrence the news landscape Critics of Netflix s deal say that combining the massive streaming company with Warner s HBO Max would give it overwhelming arena dominance whereas the Paramount streaming provision is far smaller This is something that we ve heard for a long time including when we started the streaming business Netflix co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos mentioned in a filing through Warner Bros Our stance then and now is the same we see this as a win for the entertainment industry not the end of it Bids from both Netflix and Paramount have raised alarm for what they could mean for film and TV production While Netflix has agreed to uphold Paramount s contractual obligations for theatrical releases critics have pointed to its past business model and reliance on online releases Yet Paramount and Warner Bros are two of the big five legacy studios left in Hollywood in contemporary times Paramount s attempt to buy Warner s cable networks and news business would also bring CBS and CNN under the same roof In addition to further accelerating media consolidation that could raise questions about shifts in editorial control as seen at CBS News both leading up to and following Skydance s billion purchase of Paramount which it completed in August Paramount Skydance did not promptly respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press early Wednesday U S President Donald Trump has already been vocal about his future involvement in the deal indicating that politics will play a role in regulatory approval Trump previously announced that Netflix s deal could be a complication because of the expected for an outsized control of the arena The Republican president also has a close relationship with Oracle s billionaire founder Larry Ellison the father of Paramount s CEO whose family trust is also heavily backing the company s bid to buy Warner Affinity Partners an commitment firm run by Trump s son-in-law Jared Kushner previously disclosed it would investing in the Paramount deal too But on Tuesday the firm broadcasted that it would be dropping out of the bid Still Trump also has a tendency to make decisions based on gut and his personal mood He has continued to publicly lash out at Paramount over editorial decisions at CBS Minutes For those people that think I am close with the new owners of CBS please understand that Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called takeover than they have ever treated me before Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social on Tuesday If they are friends I d hate to see my enemies Source