{"id":122539,"date":"2025-11-07T07:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/122539\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T07:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T07:28:10","slug":"comcast-taps-bankers-to-explore-bid-for-warner-bros-discovery-assets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/122539\/","title":{"rendered":"Comcast Taps Bankers to Explore Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery Assets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tComcast<\/a> has taken a step closer to making an offer for parts of Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a> \u2014 but not WBD in its entirety \u2014 with the retention of two banking advisers, Variety has confirmed. <\/p>\n

\n\tComcast is among the players looking to potentially cut an M&A deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, which officially put itself on the block last month. Others seeking a play for WBD include David Ellison\u2019s Paramount Skydance, which has made offers for the whole company, and Netflix.<\/p>\n

\n\tComcast has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to evaluate a potential bid for WBD assets and has gained access to WBD\u2019s financial data, a source familiar with the matter said, confirming a report by Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tComcast is in the process of splitting off most of NBCUniversal\u2019s cable networks into a new company, Versant, a transaction expected to be completed by the end of 2025. The thinking is that Comcast would look to bid for WBD\u2019s streaming and studios business; Warner Bros. Discovery is itself has been in the process of separating into two entities, Warner Bros. (HBO Max and studios) and Discovery Global (TV networks and Discovery+).<\/p>\n

\n\tLast month Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s announced that it had received in-bound M&A interest from \u201cmultiple parties\u201d and has commenced a process to review such offers<\/a>. WBD\u2019s board said it will consider a deal structure that would enable a merger of Warner Bros. (the streaming and studios side) with a third-party acquirer alongside a spin-off of Discovery Global to shareholders. <\/p>\n

\n\tMike Cavanagh, Comcast\u2019s co-CEO, told analysts during the cable and media giant\u2019s Q3 earnings call<\/a> last week that \u201cthe bar is high\u201d for the company to consider a major merger of acquisition. But he didn\u2019t rule anything out \u2014 and suggested that Comcast\u2019s ability to secure federal approval for any transaction would improve once the Versant spinoff of its linear cable channels (other than Bravo) into is completed.<\/p>\n

\n\tCavanagh said that \u201cwhat we\u2019d be looking for and what we\u2019re going to look like post-Versant spin, I think more things are viable than maybe some of the public commentary that\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEllison, who just closed the deal to form Paramount Skydance in August, has made three escalating bids for Warner Bros. Discovery in its entirety<\/a>. The board of Warner Bros. Discovery has rejected all three as too low, including Ellison\u2019s most recent one last month for $23.50\/share.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Netflix is exploring a bid for some piece of WBD and retained investment bank Moelis & Co. to put together a prospective offer, Reuters reported<\/a> last week. Moelis was the financial adviser to David Ellison\u2019s Skydance Media in its takeover of Paramount Global to former Paramount Skydance.<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told investors on its Q3 earnings interview last week that the company has \u201cno interest in owning legacy media networks,\u201d<\/a> indicating that an acquisition of WBD in its entirety \u2014 including networks like CNN, TBS, HGTV and Food Network \u2014 is off the table. Sarandos did say Netflix can be \u201cchoosy\u201d about its M&A targets, but he added: \u201cNothing is a must-have for us to meet our goals that we have for the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWarner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, speaking on the media conglom\u2019s Q3 earnings call Thursday, said, \u201cYou\u2019ve all seen media reports as to potential interested parties, and I won\u2019t comment on anything specific. But it\u2019s fair to say that we have an active process underway. When you look at our films like \u2018Superman,\u2019 \u2018Weapons\u2019 and \u2018One Battle After Another,\u2019 the global reach of HBO Max and the diversity of our networks offerings, we\u2019ve managed to bring the best, most treasured traditions of Warner Bros. forward into a new era of entertainment and new media landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comcast has taken a step closer to making an offer for parts of Warner Bros. Discovery \u2014 but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[5000,156,111,139,69,437,3204],"class_list":{"0":"post-122539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-comcast","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}