Paramount Skydance (PSKY) announced on Monday a bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in an all-cash deal worth $30 per share, with a total value of $108.4 billion, as the company moves to top Netflix’s (NFLX) deal struck last week to acquire the storied studio.
Paramount stock rose more than 9% after the announcement, while Warner Bros. stock rose as much as 7%. Netflix shares lost over 3%.
Paramount’s bid on Monday would see the company acquire all of Warner Bros.’ assets.
On Friday, Netflix agreed to acquire Warner Bros.’ TV, film, studios, and streaming division for $72 billion in equity value — roughly $27.75 per share — in a cash-and-stock deal worth a total $82.7 billion that would see Warner Bros. shareholders receive $23.35 per share, along with $4.50 in Netflix common stock.
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The tentative deal between Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix, agreed to by the boards of both companies, has yet to receive approval under the federal government’s antitrust review process, where success is far from guaranteed.
A combined Netflix-WBD would control roughly a third of US streaming activity, according to data from JustWatch, a platform that measures streaming engagement across US services, setting up ripe conditions for a drawn-out and fiercely critical deal review from the Justice Department.
President Trump has already flagged potential antitrust questions about the deal, adding fuel to concerns about regulatory opposition. “Well, that’s got to go through a process, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said at an event on Sunday. “But it is a big market share. It could be a problem.”
Taking advantage of what it sees as a still-open window of opportunity, Paramount’s Monday morning bid is the latest in a line of attempts by David Ellison’s company to acquire the storied Hollywood entity.
By mid-October 2025, Paramount had made three unsuccessful and unsolicited proposals for Warner Bros., culminating in a $58 billion offer at $20 per share.
All three approaches were rejected by Warner Bros., which is led by Hollywood mogul David Zaslav. The company saw the offers as too low and doubted that Ellison could actually raise the capital needed to get a deal over the finish line, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Ellison’s argument with Monday’s offer is simplicity.
In raising commitments for its new offer at nearly double the value of its original play, Paramount sought to soothe Netflix’s directors and shareholders by proposing a “radical simplification” of its financing.
Earlier plans to raise the necessary capital for Paramount’s initial offers had relied on a web of investments and commitments. Some of the equity would be funded by Ellison and his father, Larry, the founder and executive chairman of Oracle (ORCL); some by RedBird Capital, which provided much of the financing for David Ellison’s acquisition of Paramount from Shari Redstone; some by Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds; and some by Jared Kushner’s private equity firm.
This time, according to regulatory filings from Paramount, the Ellison family and RedBird Capital will backstop “100% of our equity commitments,” or the $40.7 billion in equity required to push a deal through.
And to ease worries about a block by US regulators, the three sovereign wealth funds providing capital — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Company, and Qatar’s Qatar Investment Authority — have all agreed to “forgo any governance rights,” including board seats, for their non-voting equity investments. Kushner’s Affinity Partners agreed to the same terms.
Paramount’s offer also simplifies what happens to the company for shareholders.
If the Netflix deal is to go through, it will see the streaming giant, led by CEO Ted Sarandos, bring Warner Bros.’ film and TV studios, HBO, and HBO Max into Netflix’s empire.
But Warner Bros.’ other entertainment, sports, and news assets under its “global networks” division — such as CNN, TNT Sports, and Discovery — would be spun off into a separate public company called Discovery Global under a plan initially announced earlier in 2025.
Paramount’s new $108.4 billion offer, by contrast, is for the entire company all in one.
“Paramount’s strategically and financially compelling offer to WBD shareholders provides a superior alternative to the Netflix transaction, which offers inferior and uncertain value and exposes WBD shareholders to a protracted multi-jurisdictional regulatory clearance process with an uncertain outcome along with a complex and volatile mix of equity and cash,” Paramount said in a statement.
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Jake Conley is a breaking news reporter covering US equities for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @byjakeconley or email him at jake.conley@yahooinc.com.
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