Netflix and WBD say Netflix revised its WBD offer to an all-cash deal for $27.75/share, with the same $82.7B value; its original bid had $59B in debt financing

CNN 2026-01-21 Brian Stelter

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Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery Amend Agreement to All-Cash Transaction
@lucas_shaw Lucas Shaw on x
“YouTube is not just UGC and cat videos anymore,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos says on a call with analysts. “They are TV.” Reminder, Ted less than a year ago: [Headline: “Ted Sarandos Says Netflix Is in the ‘Spending Time Business’ vs. YouTube's ‘Killing Time’ Business"]
@profpaulnary Paul Nary on x
1/ The winners from a revised, all-cash $NFLX bid, just like in most bidding contests, are $WBD shareholders (at least probably, for now) If $PSKY is still in the fight for $WBD, they need to improve their offer. After all, the burden on them is to deliver a “Superior Proposal”
@profpaulnary Paul Nary on x
5/ Reading $WBD SEC filings from today, what I also find interesting is that there was no private communication (as reported by $WBD) between $WBD and $PSKY leadership since Ellison's ignored last-minute text to Zaslav on December 4th. All communication seemed to have been eithe…
@cgasparino Charles Gasparino on x
Scoop: @wbd filed a proxy statement expediting the shareholder vote on @netflix 's now $27.75 all cash offer and I am told the vote will take place in late Feb or early March as opposed to later in the spring, all to put pressure on @paramountco @Skydance to either increase its $…
@xpangler Todd Spangler on x
Netflix's original bid included $59 billion in debt financing from three banks: Wells Fargo, BNP and HSBC. That was reduced to $34.0 billion as of Dec. 19. With Netflix's new all-cash offer, that will increase to $42.2 billion, per a Netflix SEC filing. https://variety.com/...
@xpangler Todd Spangler on x
Also as part of the revised deal terms, Netflix agreed to reduce the specified amount of net debt to be borne by Discovery Global — the cable TV networks entity to be spun off prior to Netflix's takeover of WB studios and HBO Max — by $260 million https://variety.com/...
@brianstelter Brian Stelter on x
Netflix and Warner say this “simplifies the transaction structure, provides greater certainty of value for WBD stockholders, and accelerates the path to a WBD stockholder vote.” Of course, Paramount has been anticipating this move...
@brianstelter Brian Stelter on x
Breaking: In the ongoing struggle over the future of Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix says it is now prepared to pay all cash for Warner Bros. and HBO, rather than a mix of cash and stock. https://www.cnn.com/...
@badcapitalvc Arjun Malhotra on x
Netflix spent $17 billion on original content in 2023 alone, trying to own the market with high-budget exclusives. Disney, Warner Bros, and Paramount leveraged decades of content libraries and IP. Meanwhile, YouTube just let creators upload whatever they wanted and won anyway. [i…
@warren.senate.gov Elizabeth Warren on bluesky
Yes, if Warner Bros. is bought by another giant streaming company, your prices could go up. [image]

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Netflix and WBD say Netflix revised its WBD offer to an all-cash deal for $27.75/share, with the same $82.7B value; its original bid had $59B in debt financing

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