Netflix Ups Warner Bros. Bid With All-Cash Offer to Flex Out Paramount

(Photo by Ted Soqui/SIPA USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Netflix upped its offer for Warner Brothers Discovery in a move designed to outmuscle Paramount’s hostile takeover effort by rewriting its $83 billion bid as an all-cash offer.

The revised proposal, announced on Tuesday, strips out the stock component of Netflix’s original December agreement and replaces it with cash alone, a shift aimed squarely at calming shareholder nerves over market volatility while tightening the pressure on Paramount, whose rival bid has already been rejected by the WBD board as riskier.

“Today’s revised merger agreement brings us even closer to combining two of the greatest storytelling companies in the world,” WBD chief executive David Zaslav said, according to The New York Times.

Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos echoed that logic, saying the all-cash structure offered “greater financial certainty” for shareholders.

While Paramount has repeatedly revised the structure of its own proposal, it has not raised its headline price since losing out to Netflix, leaving it exposed as the streaming giant simplifies the choice in front of WBD investors.

Netflix is buying the streaming and studios business, while WBD spins off its cable networks, including CNN and TNT, into a separate publicly traded company. Paramount has insisted on its $108 billion, all-in offer, roughly $30 a share.

President Donald Trump, whose Department of Justice could have final regulatory say in the deal, has publicly boosted Paramount’s bid while also praising Sarandos as “a great person.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!