Warner Bros Discovery has told its shareholders to reject an “inferior” updated bid from Paramount Skydance to buy the company.<\/p>\n
It is the second time in less than a month the Warner Bros board has urged its shareholders to say no to the Paramount offer, after announcing on 5 December that Netflix was buying the company’s film and streaming businesses for $72bn<\/a> (\u00a354bn).<\/p>\n The Warner Bros board said the offer was not in the best interests of shareholders and had not met the criteria of a “superior proposal”.<\/p>\n Paramount had said its offer was “superior” to the Netflix deal, proposing to buy all of Warner Bros entities including its TV channels including CNN and TNT.<\/p>\n The chair of the Warner Bros board of directors, Samuel Di Piazza Jr, said the board remained unanimous in supporting the Netflix deal instead.<\/p>\n “Paramount’s offer continues to provide insufficient value, including terms such as an extraordinary amount of debt financing that create risks to close and lack of protections for our shareholders if a transaction is not completed.<\/p>\n “Our binding agreement with Netflix will offer superior value at greater levels of certainty, without the significant risks and costs Paramount’s offer would impose on our shareholders,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n One of the key differences between the offers is what parts of Warner Bros each company wants to buy.<\/p>\n The Netflix offer is for the film and streaming parts of Warner Bros, after Warner Bros splits its business into two divisions in the latter part of this year.<\/p>\n Paramount instead wants to buy the whole business, including cable channels such as CNN and its Discovery and free-to-air channels in Europe.<\/p>\n In December, Paramount offered more than $108bn for the entirety of Warner Bros, but the Warner Bros board unanimously recommended its shareholders reject it<\/a>.<\/p>\n