Paramount Skydance on Thursday staunchly defended its revised $78 billion bid to take over Warner Bros. Discovery after the company again rejected its offer in favor of Netflix.
The bidder argued that Comcast’s flopped spinoff of its NBCUniversal cable assets this week into a new company called Versant – which includes CNBC and MS NOW, formerly MSNBC – should act as a cautionary tale, since Netflix’s deal hinges on spinning off WBD’s cable assets including CNN.
If Discovery Global – Netflix’s proposed spin-off of WBD cable assets – trades in-tandem with Versant’s debut, it will be worth zero dollars a share, Paramount argued.
Paramount, meanwhile, claimed it “cured every issue” that WBD raised with its initial offer in December, even adding a personal guarantee of $40.4 billion of equity financing from billionaire Larry Ellison, father of Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison.
“Our offer clearly provides WBD investors greater value and a more certain, expedited path to completion,” David Ellison said in a statement on Thursday.
“Throughout this process, we have worked hard for WBD shareholders and remain committed to engaging with them on the merits of our superior bid and advancing our ongoing regulatory review process.”
Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
