Paramount made an official announcement Monday morning that it will make another all-cash offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for $30.00 per share. The offer will be for the entirety of WBD, including the streaming and studio side, along with the cable network side.
The move comes after Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a definitive agreement for Netflix to acquire the Warner Bros. film and television studios along with the HBO and HBO Max brands on Friday, December 5.
In a press release Monday, Paramount wrote that its “strategically and financially compelling offer to WBD shareholders provides a superior alternative to the Netflix” and that a deal with Netflix would be setting the company up for a long and complicated regulatory clearance process. Paramount’s offer would give the company $18 billion more in cash than the Netflix offer.
David Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Paramount, said: “WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company. Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros. Discovery Board of Directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion. We believe the WBD Board of Directors is pursuing an inferior proposal which exposes shareholders to a mix of cash and stock, an uncertain future trading value of the Global Networks linear cable business and a challenging regulatory approval process. We are taking our offer directly to shareholders to give them the opportunity to act in their own best interests and maximize the value of their shares.”
Paramount has been pushing hard for the deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for months, starting with an unsolicited proposal in October which was rejected. The company then began looking at alternative plans to get the company, including going directly to the shareholders, a move known as a “hostile bid.” The company shared Monday that it has sent six proposals over the course of 12 weeks and feels that WBD “never engaged meaningfully.”
The shareholders will need to make a decision before the offer is set to expire at 5:00 p.m. ET on January 8, 2026.