2026년 2월 24일 · Unknown · financial · 출처 Yahoo Finance
Warner Bros Discovery is now running a merger auction with a March 20 deadline and Hollywood's future at stake Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock
Netflix has a signed deal and the cash to defend it. Paramount has a higher bid and a political edge. The Warner Bros board has roughly three weeks to decide which gamble it prefers
The bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery Inc (NASDAQ:WBD, XETRA:J5A) has entered its most consequential phase, with a new Paramount offer on the table, an activist investor threatening to blow up the Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX, XETRA:NFC) deal at the shareholder vote, and a board that has so far preferred the lower bid now being forced to explain itself.
The bare facts of the competing proposals tell only part of the story. Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison, has tabled an offer above its previous $30 per share cash bid, which valued the whole of Warner Bros, including debt at $108.4 billion.
Netflix's agreed deal sits at $27.75 per share, or $82.7 billion, but covers only the studio and streaming assets, with a cable spinoff preceding the acquisition. Paramount thinks those cable assets are nearly worthless. Netflix thinks the spinoff structure delivers better value to shareholders. Both arguments are self-serving, and the truth almost certainly sits somewhere in between.
What makes this more than a straightforward auction is the regulatory dimension. Ellison has cultivated close ties with the Trump administration and is arguing that a Paramount deal faces a materially smoother path through Washington than a Netflix transaction.
That argument will resonate with a board that has to weigh not just headline price but the probability that any deal actually closes. Netflix, for its part, has the balance sheet to raise its bid and has indicated willingness to do so if necessary.
The board's position is uncomfortable. It signed with Netflix in December, rejected earlier Paramount approaches, and is now re-engaging only because Ancora Capital built a $200 million stake and threatened to vote the Netflix deal down on March 20.
Ancora's criticism, that the board accepted an inferior deal and is gambling on an uncertain spinoff, is pointed precisely because the numbers support it at first glance.
Wall Street reckons a Paramount offer around $34 per share would effectively end the debate. Whether Ellison is willing to go there, and whether Netflix would respond by raising its own bid, will determine whether March 20 produces a resolution or simply the next chapter of a saga that has already reshaped expectations about who will control Hollywood's most valuable content library.
The Warner Bros board now has until Paramount's latest offer is formally assessed to decide whether the Netflix agreement, which remains technically in effect, still represents the best outcome for shareholders. Given the pressure bearing down on it from multiple directions, that assessment will be anything but straightforward.
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