Paramount Launches Hostile Takeover Plan To Derail Netflix Buying Warner Bros.

If you thought the Paramount Skydance conglomerate would go silently into that good night, not so fast! Despite all signs pointing towards Netflix winning exclusive negotiation rights to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in an eleventh-hour shocker, this ongoing Hollywood saga has yielded yet another twist. Believe it or not, the opportunity to buy one of the oldest and proudest legacy studios in the world isn't one that dealmakers take lightly. Look no further than CEO David Ellison's latest attempt to stymie the proceedings.

According to a new report by Variety, Paramount has announced a new all-cash bid to acquire all of Warner Bros. Discovery — not just the studio and streamer, as Netflix has its sights on. Obviously, a hostile takeover attempt like this would need to be significant enough to give WBD boss David Zaslav and his shareholders reason to pause. Compared to Netflix's $82.7 billion offer valuation, Paramount's would roughly amount to a whopping $108.4 billion. 

Adding to the intrigue, Ellison released the following statement in regards to making this public (and appears to take a direct shot at Zaslav):

"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."

Nothing turns grown businessmen into tantrum-throwing, fight-to-the-death backstabbers quite like the prospects of swallowing up entire studios in multibillion-dollar deals. Much has been written about the potentially disastrous consequences of a Paramount takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, a bullet we thought we'd dodged (for only a marginally less-worse one). Instead, this latest plot twist now sees the once-defeated Paramount raising its bid for an offer that they hope WBD's shareholders can't refuse. This is going to get messy, folks.

It's an open question whether WBD will actually go back to the drawing board despite entering into exclusive negotiations with Netflix — remember, Netflix will be on the hook for a hefty $5.8 billion kill-fee penalty should this fall apart — but it's abundantly clear that Paramount is keen on making plenty of noise in the meantime. The Ellison family's ties to President Donald Trump have repeatedly come up in the company's favor in terms of getting this deal through the complex regulatory process to actually approve any merger, making WBD's last-minute pivot to Netflix all the more shocking. (News has since leaked that Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos secretly met with Trump in months past and received certain assurances about a possible deal ... which Trump promptly poured cold water on.)

If any of this sounds familiar, that's because it's reminiscent of Disney's purchase of 20th Century Fox in 2018. Its ultimate offer equaled a little over $70 billion — though only after raising its bid in response to a late push by Comcast. With even more money on the line this time around, expect this standoff between three powerful companies to go right down to the wire.