♠️Paramount Ups the Ante in the Warner Bidding War

Paramount has kicked down the studio gates and turned Netflix’s tidy takeover into a full-blown Hollywood crossover event. Just three days after Netflix agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studios and streaming business for $27.75 per share — about $72 billion in equity value and $82.7 billion in enterprise value — Paramount Skydance has shown up with an all-cash hostile tender offer of $30 per share for every Warner Bros. Discovery share on the table. That values the company at roughly $108.4 billion including debt, and it comes with one simple ask to shareholders: hit pause on Netflix’s “exclusive” deal and let the bidding war stream in 4K.

Paramount's flex isn’t just about the price tag, it’s the scope. Netflix’s deal is for Warner’s studios and streaming operations, which include Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO and HBO Max, DC Studios, not to mention a towering content library - all while leaving the linear cable networks like CNN and Discovery to be spun off into a separate company. Paramount’s hostile bid says “we’ll take the whole cinematic universe, please,” including those cable networks, and it’s dangling more cash up front than Netflix’s mix of cash and stock. Paramount is pitching its offer as $18 billion richer in cash for Warner shareholders and potentially faster to close than Netflix’s 12- to 18-month regulatory slog, essentially trying to sell investors on a shorter sequel with a bigger box-office opening.

Behind the scenes, the credits are already rolling with an eye-popping cast of financiers and politicians. David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance bid is backed by the Ellison family, RedBird Capital and a wall of money from Gulf sovereign wealth funds and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, plus some $54 billion in bridge financing from Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo Global Management. On the other side, Netflix’s original deal has become a political R-rating. President Donald Trump has warned that the Netflix–Warner combo “could be a problem” because of market share and says he expects to be “involved” in the decision, while Senator Elizabeth Warren has branded the merger an “anti-monopoly nightmare” that could concentrate too much power in one streaming giant’s hands.

Wall Street, naturally, is watching like it’s the season finale. Warner Bros. Discovery shares have jumped as investors price in the possibility of a richer deal, Paramount stock has been rewarded for the audacity of its all-cash move, and Netflix has taken a hit as analysts fret about overpaying, prolonged regulatory drama and now a live bidding war for one of Hollywood’s crown-jewel libraries. Regardless of which suitor ultimately wins, Warner shareholders have stumbled into the rarest genre in corporate finance: a remake where the studio being sold gets to watch while two streaming titans bid up the ticket price.

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