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Netflix Bows Out of Warner Bidding War, Clearing Path for Paramount Victory
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Netflix Bows Out of Warner Bidding War, Clearing Path for Paramount Victory

#Netflix #Warner Bros. Discovery #Paramount Skydance #Bidding war #Corporate acquisition #Streaming industry #Financial strategy #David Ellison

📌 Key Takeaways

  • Netflix drops out of Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war
  • Declined to match Paramount Skydance's higher offer
  • Original Netflix offer was $27.75 per share versus Paramount's $31.00
  • Viewed acquisition as 'nice to have' rather than 'must have'
  • Clears path for Paramount victory

📖 Full Retelling

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters announced on February 26, 2026, that their streaming service has dropped out of the bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, deciding not to raise their offer to counter the higher bid made by rival Paramount Skydance owned by David Ellison, as the company stated the deal was no longer financially attractive at the required price. In a statement released Thursday, the streaming giant's co-chief executives explained that while the negotiated deal would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval, they maintained a disciplined approach to acquisitions. 'The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,' they said, emphasizing that 'at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive.' The decision effectively clears the path for Paramount Skydance to secure the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes valuable assets like HBO and the Warner Bros. movie studio. The bidding war escalated significantly when Ellison, tech heir and son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, launched a takeover bid of $111 billion in response to Netflix's original $83 billion offer from December.

🏷️ Themes

Corporate acquisitions, Streaming industry competition, Financial strategy

📚 Related People & Topics

Netflix

Netflix

American video streaming service

# Netflix **Netflix** is an American subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) over-the-top streaming service. It serves as the primary distribution platform for both original and acquired content, including feature films, television series, documentaries, and specials across a vast array of genres and i...

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Mergers and acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions

Processes through which companies combine or transfer ownership

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorption, a merger, a tender offer or a hostile takeover. As an...

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Paramount Skydance

Paramount Skydance

American mass media conglomerate

Paramount Skydance Corporation (doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. The company is headquartered at the Paramount Pictures lot in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, with multiple of Paramount's divisions and subsidi...

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Bid price

Highest price a buyer is willing to pay for a product

A bid price is the highest price that a buyer (i.e., bidder) is willing to pay for some goods. It is usually referred to simply as the "bid". In bid and ask, the bid price stands in contrast to the ask price or "offer", and the difference between the two is called the bid–ask spread.

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Entity Intersection Graph

Connections for Netflix:

🌐 Paramount 14 shared
👤 Donald Trump 7 shared
👤 Susan Rice 6 shared
🏢 Warner Bros. 5 shared
🌐 Streaming media 5 shared
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Original Source
No Deal Netflix Bows Out of Warner Bidding War, Clearing Path for Paramount Victory The streaming service's co-CEOs said "this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price" By Charisma Madarang Charisma Madarang Contact Charisma Madarang on X Contact Charisma Madarang by Email View all posts by Charisma Madarang February 26, 2026 Netflix has dropped out of the bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery , declining to raise its offer to counter a higher bid made this week by rival company Paramount Skydance, owned by David Ellison. In a statement released Thursday, Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters announced their decision and said that “at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive.” “The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,” said the streaming giant’s co-chief executives. “However, we’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.” In December, Netflix seemed poised to swoop up a large swath of WBD’s business, including HBO and the Warner Bros. movie studio, in an $83 billion deal. In response, Ellison, tech heir and son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, launched a takeover bid of $111 billion. The proposal included buying a purchase price of $31.00 per WBD share in cash (Netflix originally offered $27.75 per share) and paying the $2.8 billion termination fee Warner Bros. would be required to pay to Netflix. Trending Stories Wu-Tang Clan Co-Founder Oliver ‘Power’ Grant Dead at 52
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