Netflix revises $82.7B offer for Warner Bros to all-cash deal
What's the story
Netflix has made an all-cash offer of $82.7 billion for Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets, according to a regulatory filing today. The bid, at $27.75 a share, has been unanimously approved by the board of HBO owner Warner Bros. The move is seen as a strategic maneuver to counter Paramount Skydance's competing efforts to acquire the Hollywood giant.
Strategic shift
Netflix's bid aims for quicker shareholder vote
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the new all-cash agreement would speed up the timeline for a stockholder vote and provide more financial certainty. The revised offer replaces an earlier cash-and-stock bid of $23.25 in cash and $4.50 in Netflix stock per share. Warner Bros's board has maintained that their merger deal is better than Paramount Skydance's $30-per-share cash bid as it offers investors a stake in a separately traded Discovery Global post-merger spin-off.
Valuation strategies
Warner Bros evaluates potential spin-off and merger implications
Warner Bros's advisers have used three different methods to value Discovery Global, a potential spin-off that would include television assets like CNN and TNT Sports, as well as the Discovery+ streaming service. The lowest share price they found was $1.33 per share by applying a single value across the whole company. Paramount has dismissed this cable spinoff at the core of Netflix's offer as virtually worthless.
Legal proceedings
Paramount's court request and future
On January 12, Paramount Skydance filed a lawsuit seeking to expedite the disclosure of this information so investors could assess competing bids for Warner Bros. However, a Delaware court judge denied the request, ruling that Paramount failed to prove it would suffer irreparable harm from alleged inadequate disclosures about Warner Bros's cable TV business. The rival bidder's tender offer expires on January 21.