Paramount Set to Take Control of Warner Bros. After Netflix Exit

After the end of a heated bidding war, Netflix dropped out of the race to obtain Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) on February 26. It declined to match the revised bid provided by Paramount Skydance for the same that was supposed to be “superior”.

In a statement, Netflix said in a statement that “The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval.”

“However, we’ve forever been disciplined, and at the price necessary to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially striking, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”

Netflix on Paramount and Warner Bros deal said that they would have been “strong stewards of Warner Bros’ iconic brands”, and that their transaction would have “strengthened the industry and preserved and created more production jobs in the US”.

“But Netflix exits Warner Bros acquisition was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”

For several months, Netflix and Paramount have vied for absolute ownership of WBD’s film and television studios in the huge content library. Netflix’s starting offer had valued the Warner Bros business at $82.7 billion, while Paramount’s valuation of the joint business stood at $108 billion. Therefore, any resulting media deal was long assured to become one of the biggest ever in history. It is about to surpass the WBD’s own unsuccessful 2022 $43 billion merger, which set this practice in motion.

Last June, Warner Bros Discovery decided to split into two businesses, ending in a new Warner Bros, adding its TV business, the HBO film studio, and the HBO Max streaming service. It is a global network operation, found in some publications as Discovery Global, which includes the CNN, Discovery channels, and Cartoon Network.