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Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. plans to once again reject a takeover bid from Paramount Skydance Corp. after the rival media company amended the terms of its offer, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.
The Warner Bros. board hasn’t made a final determination, but will meet next week, said the people, who asked to not be identified discussing internal deliberations. Among the board’s concerns, Paramount has yet to increase its offer, which Warner Bros. earlier rejected as inferior to one from Netflix Inc. Paramount, the owner of its namesake studio and MTV, has been waging a public campaign to gather support for its proposal to buy Warner Bros., which owns HBO and CNN. Paramount went public with a $30-a-share cash bid on Dec. 8, three days after Warner Bros. accepted the deal with Netflix, which is only buying Warner Bros.’ studio and streaming businesses. Paramount has since amended its offer twice, most recently by including an assurance from billionaire Larry Ellison that he would personally guarantee $40.4 billion in equity financing and other commitments.
Paramount is controlled by Larry Ellison and his son David, a movie producer now assembling a media empire. The Ellisons took control of Paramount in August and have since submitted multiple bids for Warner Bros., which would give their undersized company another of Hollywood’s original studios and more scale in streaming.
Today's show features:
- Bloomberg News Managing Editor for Media & Entertainment Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros. Discovery's plans to reject a takeover bid from Paramount Skydance
- Ross Mayfield, Investment Strategist at Baird on Tuesday’s Fed minutes release and the investment outlook for 2026 Private Wealth Management
- Ed Price , Senior Non-Resident Fellow at New York University, on geopolitical unrest in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America
- Melissa Brown, Head of Investment Decision Research at SimCorp, on the momentum trade and key historical market indicators to watch with earnings season on the horizon
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