Paramount Skydance in $108.4 bn hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery, challenging Netflix

New Delhi: Paramount Skydance unveiled a hostile $108.4 billion all-cash bid for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) on Monday, directly challenging Netflix’s recently announced takeover of the company’s core entertainment assets.

According to news reports, the newly merged Paramount Skydance is offering WBD shareholders $30 per share in cash for the entire company, including Warner Bros. Studios, HBO, Max, and linear networks such as CNN and TNT.

The bid represents a 139% premium to WBD’s undisturbed share price of $12.54 on September 10, before reports of a potential Netflix deal first surfaced, stated the reports.

Paramount’s move comes three days after Netflix and WBD announced a definitive agreement under which Netflix would acquire Warner Bros’ film and TV studios, HBO and Max in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at $27.75 per WBD share, or about $82.7 billion in enterprise value.

Under that structure, WBD plans to spin off its global TV networks, including CNN, Discovery, and various international channels, into a separate listed company called Discovery Global.

WBD shareholders would receive roughly $23.25 in cash and $4.50 in Netflix stock per share for the studios and streaming business, while retaining their stake in the networks' spin-off.

Netflix has pitched the deal as a way to supercharge its content pipeline with franchises such as DC, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, while keeping Warner Bros films in cinemas through the existing studio pipeline.

In a letter to WBD’s board, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison labelled his offer “superior” to Netflix’s, arguing that it provides around $18 billion more in immediate cash and avoids the complexity and execution risk of a spin-off plus partial sale.

Paramount is taking the bid directly to shareholders via a 30-day tender offer after what it says were months of unsuccessful attempts to engage WBD on a friendly deal. Ellison has told investors that the proposal could close within 10–12 months, compared with Netflix’s estimated 12–18-month timeline, and would provide WBD owners with a cleaner exit from the business.

The offer is backed by a heavyweight investor group that includes the Ellison family, RedBird Capital Partners, sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, alongside more than $50 billion in committed bank financing from lenders including Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo. These state-backed investors have agreed to forgo governance rights to reduce national security concerns.

Paramount said a combined company would create a stronger rival to Disney and Netflix, promising deeper investment in content and more than 30 theatrical releases a year, while also targeting significant cost savings from merging studio and back-office operations.

News reports stated that Warner Bros. Discovery acknowledged receipt of the unsolicited tender offer and said its board will review the proposal “in accordance with its fiduciary duties” and make a recommendation to shareholders within the required 10-day window. For now, the company has not withdrawn its support for the Netflix agreement.

If WBD were to walk away from Netflix in favour of Paramount, it would owe the streamer a breakup fee of about $2.8 billion under the current merger agreement, adding another layer of cost to any switch.

Competition authorities are expected to examine how either deal would affect studio bargaining power, sports rights, and consumer choice in an industry already dominated by a handful of global platforms.