Paramount Skydance on Monday launched a hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery after it accepted an offer from Netflix – even as President Trump warned that the Netflix deal “could be a problem” with his antitrust regulators.
Paramount is making its case directly to shareholders with an all-cash, $30-per-share offer to take over the entire company – the same bid that WBD rejected last week, The Post previously reported.
The offer is backed with equity from the Ellison family and RedBird Capital along with debt fully committed by Bank of America, Citi and Apollo.
Paramount is arguing the deal “provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion to WBD shareholders,” according to a press release out Monday.
“We’re really here to finish what we started,” CEO David Ellison told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday.
Netflix on Friday announced a $72 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business, worth $82.7 billion when including debt.
The deal could create a Hollywood mammoth that owns everything from “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game” to the “Harry Potter” and “Batman” franchises, and combine more than 400 million streaming subscribers from Netflix and HBO Max under one roof.
Trump on Sunday said the deal “could be a problem,” adding that he’ll be involved in the merger’s approval process.
“Well, that’s got to go through a process, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters Sunday on the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Awards in Washington.
“I’ll be involved in that decision, too. But they have a very big market share,” he said of Netflix. “When they have Warner Bros., that share goes up a lot.”
“There’s no question about it. It could be a problem,” he added.
Trump said he would consult “some economists” before approving the deal, suggesting he’ll be involved in an antitrust review of the merger.
The president also confirmed he met with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos at the White House last week ahead of the deal.
“I met with Ted. I think he’s fantastic,” Trump told reporters. “I have a lot of respect for him but it’s a lot of market share, so we’ll have to see what happens.”
Earlier on Sunday, Bloomberg reported that Sarandos left the meeting with the impression that the deal would not face immediate opposition from the White House.
Since the deal does not include broadcast stations, it would not require FCC approval, but it is likely to face intense antitrust scrutiny from the US Department of Justice, European Commission and other global regulators.
Netflix’s deal only includes Warner Bros. film and TV studios, HBO and HBO Max, while Paramount is bidding for the entirety of the company, including TV networks like CNN, Discovery and TNT Sports.
Last week, Paramount sent two letters to WBD’s lawyers and CEO David Zaslav questioning the “fairness and adequacy” of the auction, arguing a deal with Netflix would “never close,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
In a response later that week, WBD said the company has “robustly complied” with fiduciary obligations.
Senior White House officials have already met to discuss antitrust concerns about a potential WBD-Netflix merger, The Post reported.
Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called the deal an “anti-monopoly nightmare,” while a group of anonymous film producers sent a letter to Congress with “grave concerns” about a top streamer taking over a box-office giant like WBD.
But the deal includes a promise from Netflix to continue theatrical movie releases for WBD – a big change for the streaming giant.
Netflix and HBO Max will continue to be run separately, but the company didn’t clarify whether it plans to offer any Netflix-HBO Max bundles, or whether the deal would lead to any price changes for streaming subscribers.
In a statement, Netflix said the deal would bring “more choice and greater value” to customers.
If approved, the acquisition comes close on the heels of an $8.4 billion merger of Skydance Media and Paramount Global in July, which was approved after months of back and forth over antitrust and political concerns.
The FCC finally greenlit the deal after Skydance vowed to scrap DEI at Paramount and appoint a media bias ombudsman at CBS News.
Paramount also agreed to pay $16 million to Trump’s future presidential library to settle a lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview with his then-opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, that he argued was deceptively edited.
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