Jan. 22 (UPI) — Paramount Skydance extended the deadline for shareholders to accept its hostile bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
The deadline was Wednesday, but it has been extended to Feb. 20, Paramount said in a press release.
Paramount CEO David Ellison and his senior executive team and financial backers have been meeting with WBD investors recently to push them to accept Paramount’s offer, Deadline reported. Paramount has said it will launch an effort to elect board members who will endorse its offer.
In October, Warner Bros. said it was open to accepting offers after getting unsolicited ones. After a bidding war between Netflix and Paramount Skydance, Warner Bros. announced on Dec. 5 that it would accept Netflix’s offer.
Paramount launched a hostile bid to buy WBD a week later. The WBD board told shareholders not to accept the Paramount bid because Oracle creator Larry Ellison, father of Paramount CEO David Ellison, wasn’t backing it. On Dec. 22, Paramount said it has Larry Ellison’s backing of $40 billion in equity. On Tuesday, Netflix amended its offer to be more attractive to shareholders.
Warner Bros. responded to the extended deadline in a statement, Variety reported, calling the Paramount bid an “inferior scheme.”
“Once again, Paramount continues to make the same offer our Board has repeatedly and unanimously rejected in favor of a superior merger agreement with Netflix. It’s also clear our shareholders agree, with more than 93% also rejecting Paramount’s inferior scheme. We are confident in our ability to achieve regulatory approval for the Netflix merger and look forward to delivering the tremendous and certain value our agreement will provide to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders,” WBD said.
Paramount has also sued WBD in Delaware Chancery Court to force it to release more information. In a recent SEC filing, WBD “revealed for the first time some of the critical information that had been withheld from its shareholders, but it still has omitted highly material information its shareholders need about Discovery Global,” Paramount said in its statement.
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