Warner Bros. Discovery, a media partner and minority owner in AEW, has received its latest acquisition offer from Paramount Skydance. Although the board continues to maintain its endorsement of the previously announced merger with Netflix.
Netflix announced its deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, splitting the Discovery portion – including TBS and TNT – from Warner Bros., with Discovery operating as its own company afterward, in December. However, Paramount contended that their offer was the better for the shareholders of WBD, thus ensuing a bidding war of-sorts. The WBD board has always been favorable to the announced Netflix deal, as opposed to Paramount.
That was repeated in the latest filing from the company, with a letter from the board informing that, following negotiation with Paramount during a seven-day limited waiver period, a revised proposal to acquire all outstanding shares of WBD common stock had been submitted.
It was noted that the proposal was being reviewed in consultation with legal and financial advisors, and shareholders will be updated when that review is complete.
“The Netflix merger agreement remains in effect, and the Board continues to recommend in favor of the Netflix transaction,” the letter reads. “WBD shareholders are advised not to take any action at this time with respect to the amended [Paramount] tender offer.”
WBD’s transaction has come under the microscope within wrestling, largely for the fact that WBD carries AEW and Netflix carries WWE.
AEW is shown on WBD programming through TBS and TNT, which according to the Netflix agreement would see no cross-over with the WWE programming on its streaming platform. That same agreement stated that Netflix would continue to operate MAX, which streams programming, and it’s yet unclear how and where that could effect AEW – if at all.
