The betting site Polymarket just gave Paramount a boost after its announcement of a $108 billion hostile takeover bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) out from under Netflix.
Paramount stepped up its battle to win the right to buy Warner’s entertainment arms on Monday by offering a $30-per-share all-cash tender directly to WBD’s board of directors.
The hostile bid values Warner at an enterprise value of $108.4 billion and represents a 139 percent premium to the company’s September 10 stock price of $12.54, before deal speculation began. Paramount argues its offer provides shareholders $18 billion more in cash than Netflix’s offer of $82.7 billion last week.
The betting market is now giving Paramount the edge in the fight to buy out Warners with Paramount now seeing a 42 percent chance of coming out with the deal while Netflix has fallen to 38 percent chance of buying Warners.
WBD has since said that it is taking Paramount’s offer seriously and will review the offer within ten days, Variety reported.
But many, especially in Hollywood, are worried that if Warners is taken over by streaming giant Netflix, the company’s theatrical releases will suffer because Netflix is more concerned with in-home viewing than theatrical releases.
However, since announcing his deal with WBD, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has insisted that if his company takes over Warners he will remain “deeply committed” to releasing films “exactly the way they release those movies today’ and in theaters.
“We didn’t buy this company to destroy that value. We’re deeply committed to releasing [Warner Bros.] movies exactly the way they release those movies today,” Sarandos said during a UBS Global Media and Communications conference on Monday.
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