Warner Bros. Discovery’s board has told Paramount Global and Skydance Media to raise their takeover bid from $23.50 per share to roughly $30 per share, according to a Sunday Axios report citing people familiar with the board’s thinking.
The demand comes as WBD approaches a Friday deadline for formal best-and-final offers and aims to wrap up a sale by the end of 2025. Paramount/Skydance remains the only party pursuing a full acquisition of WBD and the only one committed to keeping the entire company—including its declining cable networks—intact.
WBD rejected the $23.50 offer (80% cash, 20% stock) as too low compared with its internal plan to split into two standalone public companies: one housing the studio and streaming assets, the other the legacy cable networks.
Other suitors are interested only in pieces of WBD.
As of Saturday close, WBD shares traded around $24—up 113% year-to-date and well above the $12.54 price on Sept. 10, the day before Paramount’s interest first leaked—reflecting market expectations of a higher final bid.
Paramount is being backed by Skydance chairman David Ellison (with significant funding from his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison) and is in talks with Apollo Global Management for debt financing. A separate Variety report claiming a $71 billion all-cash offer from Arab sovereign wealth funds was denied by Paramount as “categorically inaccurate.”
Any full-company deal would face heavy antitrust scrutiny at the DOJ over combined streaming and studio market share, though no FCC approval is required because WBD owns no local broadcast stations. European regulators could also review the transaction due to WBD’s Eurosport assets.