In a separate regulatory submitting, Paramount disclosed that Affinity Companions, the personal fairness agency led by Jared Kushner, is a part of the bid. It added that sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar are additionally collaborating.
Affinity and the opposite exterior financing companions have agreed to forgo any governance rights, which Paramount mentioned means the Committee on International Funding in america would haven’t any jurisdiction over the transaction. In the meantime, Chinese language tech conglomerate Tencent is not a accomplice.
The provide comes after Paramount misplaced out within the bidding struggle for the belongings final week to Netflix, which made a cash-and-stock deal price $27.75 per share. Paramount’s proposed transaction is for the whole thing of WBD, together with the International Networks section, whereas Netflix’s deal is for the studio and HBO Max.
Paramount argued its provide to WBD shareholders gives a superior different to the Netflix transaction, which provides “inferior and unsure worth and exposes WBD shareholders to a protracted multi-jurisdictional regulatory clearance course of with an unsure consequence,” referring to the possible antitrust considerations for Netflix’s megadeal.
On the Kennedy Middle over the weekend, President Donald Trump partially confirmed reporting from Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw about his personal conversations with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, saying that they had met within the Oval Workplace earlier than Netflix introduced its successful bid, whereas including that its mixed market share with WBD could possibly be an antitrust concern.
Paramount argued that WBD’s advice of the Netflix provide is predicated on an “illusory potential valuation of International Networks that’s unsupported by the enterprise fundamentals” and encumbered by excessive ranges of economic leverage assigned to the entity. Netflix’s provide would assume $11 billion of debt and contain a $59 billion bridge mortgage, which Bloomberg reported was among the many highest ever.
David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Paramount, mentioned: “WBD shareholders deserve a possibility to contemplate our superior all-cash provide for his or her shares in all the firm.”
Paramount, which earlier despatched a letter to WBD CEO David Zaslav complaining of a “tainted” sale course of, additional asserted immediately that though Paramount made six provides for WBD over 12 weeks, “WBD by no means engaged meaningfully with these proposals, which we imagine ship the perfect consequence for WBD shareholders.
“We imagine our provide will create a stronger Hollywood. It’s in the perfect pursuits of the artistic neighborhood, customers, and the movie show trade. We imagine they’ll profit from the improved competitors, greater content material spend and theatrical launch output, and a larger variety of films in theaters on account of our proposed transaction,” Ellison continued. “We stay up for working to expeditiously ship this chance so that every one stakeholders can start to capitalize on the advantages of the mixed firm.”
Paramount’s tender provide is scheduled to run out at 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 8, 2026. The corporate mentioned its provide will probably be financed by new fairness backstopped by Paramount’s well-capitalized principal fairness holders, and $54 billion of debt commitments from Financial institution of America, Citi, and Apollo.
Centerview Companions and RedBird Advisors are performing as lead monetary advisors to Paramount, and Financial institution of America Securities, Citi, and M. Klein & Co. are additionally performing as monetary advisors. Cravath Swaine & Moore and Latham & Watkins are performing as authorized counsel to Paramount.
Disclosure: The writer labored at Netflix from June 2024 via July 2025.
