The path is now clear for Skydance-owned Paramount to take over Hollywood studios.
Netflix has withdrawn from the battle to buy Warner Bros Discovery, paving the way for Paramount to take over the Hollywood giant.
After Skydance-owned Paramount raised its rival bid for the entire company to $31 per share, along with other revisions, Warner’s board said Thursday that the offer “constitutes a ‘corporate superior proposal’.”
Netflix was given four business days to beat Paramount’s revised offer, but quickly decided against it.
In a statement on Thursday evening, Netflix co-chief executives Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said that “the deal, at the price necessary to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offering, is no longer financially attractive.”
“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros. iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and retained and created more manufacturing jobs in the US,” they said in their statement.
“But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
Paramount CEO David Ellison had issued a statement earlier on Thursday saying the company was “pleased that WBD’s board has unanimously affirmed the superior value of our offer, which delivers superior value, certainty and speed to closing to WBD shareholders.”
Unlike Netflix’s offer, Paramount wants all of Warner’s business, including networks such as CNN and Discovery. That would put CNN under the same roof as Paramount’s CBS and bring together two of Hollywood’s last five remaining studios.
The news came on the same day that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos held meetings at the White House, but not directly with President Trump.
U.S. officials have long favored Paramount’s bid because the Ellison family has a friendly relationship with the president.
Source: ABC, Guardian
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