Gunnar Wiedenfels, CFO of Warner Bros. Discovery and designated CEO of the company’s planned network spinoff entity, says buyers are already interested in its 20% stake in its soon-to-be sibling.
The company has held talks about selling part or all of its position in the parent of Warner Bros., HBO and streaming service HBO Max, the exec confirmed Tuesday at a conference hosted by BofA Securities.
Jessica Reif Ehrlich, the veteran BofA media analyst who moderated the session, asked Wiedenfels if the company could pursue a sale of the stake prior to the expected close of the spinoff transaction in mid-2026.
“We could,” he replied. “But it’s a trade-off because we want to get full value for it. It’s a huge building block in this whole transaction, to get an equity injection at the right valuation” in order to reduce debt coming out of the split. Debt resulting from the $43 billion merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery has been a drag on the company’s stock price since that combination took effect in April 2022.
Achieving optimal value from a buyer is “definitely going to be a priority,” Wiedenfels added, noting that the company has a year to execute a sale without taking a tax hit. “We have had some interest and some discussions earlier than that. And technically, we would be able to monetize part of it, all of it, whatever, before we even close the transaction. There’s nothing specific here yet, but definitely something that I’m going to be a lot more focused on over the next few months.”
Current WBD CEO David Zaslav will lead Studios & Streaming as CEO, while Wiedenfels takes the helm of Discovery Global Networks. The WBD spinoff plan was revealed in June, a few months after Comcast’s decision to create Versant, which will become a separate home for NBCUniversal cable networks apart from Bravo in the next few months. Disney and Hearst are also shopping A+E Global Media, parent of A&E, History and Lifetime, in yet another sign of media owners adjusting to dramatic shrinkage of the pay-TV bundle. While linear networks still generate considerable cash flow, they are in secular decline as viewers and advertisers continue to migrate to streaming.
Wiedenfels said the company has been busy preparing for the split and expects to meet its projected timeline. “We’ve chopped a lot of wood but have a lot still on the agenda,” he said. The exec teased planned streaming services tied to Turner Sports and CNN and also talked up Discovery+, which launched in 2020 and will be part of the portfolio of Discovery Global Networks.