Warner Bros Likely to Reject Paramount Bid, Considers Netflix’s Smaller Offer

Netflix’s Smaller Offer: Warner Bros Discovery will urge its shareholders to reject Paramount Skydance's $108.4bn (£80.75bn) takeover bid as soon as Wednesday, according to reports.

Paramount has said its offer is "superior" to a $72bn deal that Warner Bros struck with Netflix for its film and streaming businesses.

At the same time, one of Paramount's key allies in the bid to buy Warner Bros, Affinity Partners, is out - allegedly because of "two strong competitors" muscling in on the action. Affinity, founded by US businessman & Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, was a pretty key player in this whole thing.

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Warner Bros simply isn't commenting when we reached out to them for a statement. And naturally, Paramount and Affinity have gone quiet on the matter as well.

Warner Bros is expected to advise its shareholders to give Paramount's offer the flick for a few reasons, not least concerns over how the whole deal would be paid for. That's the word from the Financial Times.

The decision to put itself on the block back in October was a response to getting numerous expressions of interest from various parties, including Paramount and Skydance.

On 5 December, Warner Bros Discovery said it had agreed to sell its film and streaming businesses to Netflix.

The following week, Paramount Skydance launched a new offer for the whole company, including its television networks.

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Paramount is backed by the billionaire Ellison family, which has close ties to the president.

A takeover of Warner Bros is expected to face scrutiny from competition regulators in the US and Europe.

A new owner of Warner Bros would gain a significant edge in the highly competitive streaming market. It would get a huge library of films and TV shows, including Harry Potter, the MonsterVerse, Friends and the HBO Max streaming service.

The film industry's not exactly thrilled about this bid to merge parts of Warner Bros with a rival. The Writers Guild of America is urging Warner's to block the deal - they reckon it'll bring down wages and lead to job losses.

The volume of content for viewers would also be reduced, it said.

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