Paramount launches $108.4bn hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery
David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is not giving up in its aggressive campaign to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), launching a hostile bid despite the announcement on Friday that Netflix had agreed to buy the company’s studio and streaming operation,Netflix’s accepted bid valued the company at $27,75 a share, though the entertainment company did not agree to acquire WBD’s traditional television assets, including the news network CNN,Paramount’s all-cash tender offer sent directly to shareholders on Monday morning is for $30 a share and would be for the entire company, offering a total enterprise value of $108,4bn, a major premium to the company’s stock price.
In making its case to shareholders, Paramount claimed its acquisition of the company provides significantly better value for shareholders would be much likelier to survive regulatory scrutiny.David Ellison and his father, Larry, whose family is financially backing the deal, are both friendly with the Trump administration.Larry Ellison had already had early conversations with a senior Trump aide about what changes he might want to see at CNN.In a statement, David Ellison called the Netflix deal “an inferior proposal which exposes shareholders to a mix of cash and stock, an uncertain future trading value of the Global Networks linear cable business and a challenging regulatory approval process”.“WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company,” he said.
“Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros Discovery board of directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion.”Ellison’s Paramount Skydance had already made several offers that were rejected during the bidding process.The company said Monday that it was concerned that shareholders “were not presented [the] most compelling and superior transaction.”Last week, attorneys for Paramount sent a letter to WBD suggesting the company was not fairly considering its offer.“It has become increasingly clear, through media reporting and otherwise, that WBD appears to have abandoned the semblance and reality of a fair transaction process, thereby abdicating its duties to stockholders, and embarked on a myopic process with a predetermined outcome that favors a single bidder,” they wrote.
Netflix’s acquisition of the studio and streaming assets of WBD provided some relief for some employees at CNN, who had been concerned about the likely merger of the network with CBS News and its controversial editor in chief Bari Weiss.“I think this is the best outcome for CNN for sure,” a senior network producer told the Guardian after the Netflix acquisition was announced, describing a “palpable sense of relief” at the network.But, the person added, “there is still a hell of a lot of anxiety around the Discovery Global spin-off and what comes next”.Some employees at CBS News had also feared a merger with CNN’s parent company, concerned that a tie-up could lead to significant job losses.“A merger with CNN is the one thing that would make me genuinely worried about losing my job,” one CBS News staffer said.
Paramount’s generous offer on Monday for WBD could re-ignite those concerns for employees at both networks.If the Netflix deal moves forward, however, CNN will be spun off – as planned – into a standalone company encompassing traditional television networks.On Sunday, Donald Trump said he would be personally involved in the review for the Netflix-WBD transaction, which he said would have implications for competition considering Netflix’s “big market share”.But he had kind words for Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos, who visited the White House recently.Several American politicians, including US Senator Elizabeth Warren, and entertainment unions, however, had expressed strong reservations about the deal.
Because no television licenses would be transferred in a potential acquisition, the acquisition of WBD is very unlikely to be subject to the review of the Federal Communications Commission and its Trump-picked chairman, Brendan Carr.But the deal would need to be reviewed for anti-trust concerns by the Department of Justice.“Paramount is highly confident in achieving expeditious regulatory clearance for its proposed offer,” the company said Monday, “as it enhances competition and is pro-cosumer, while creating a strong champion for creative talent and consumer choice.”
Paramount launches $108.4bn hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery
David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is not giving up in its aggressive campaign to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), launching a hostile bid despite the announcement on Friday that Netflix had agreed to buy the company’s studio and streaming operation.Netflix’s accepted bid valued the company at $27.75 a share, though the entertainment company did not agree to acquire WBD’s traditional television assets, including the news network CNN.Paramount’s all-cash tender offer sent directly to shareholders on Monday morning is for $30 a share and would be for the entire company, offering a total enterprise value of $108.4bn, a major premium to the company’s stock price
Divided Fed ponders US interest-rate cut at end of tumultuous year
A divided Federal Reserve meets this week to decide whether to cut interest rates, the US central bank’s last meeting before the end of a tumultuous year.The US central bank faces a number of unique challenges as it weighs its latest interest-rate decision.After the six-week government shutdown briefly shuttered the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency that collects economic data on prices and employment, Fed officials have less data to make their decision.Making matters more complicated is what appears to be growing internal division among the committee’s voting members, who are split on whether there should be a third rate cut before the end of the year. Rates currently sit at a range of 3
Scores of UK parliamentarians join call to regulate most powerful AI systems
More than 100 UK parliamentarians are calling on the government to introduce binding regulations on the most powerful AI systems as concern grows that ministers are moving too slowly to create safeguards in the face of lobbying from the technology industry.A former AI minister and defence secretary are part of a cross-party group of Westminster MPs, peers and elected members of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislatures demanding stricter controls on frontier systems, citing fears superintelligent AI “would compromise national and global security”.The push for tougher regulation is being coordinated by a nonprofit organisation called Control AI whose backers include the co-founder of Skype, Jaan Tallinn. It is calling on Keir Starmer to show independence from Donald Trump’s White House, which opposes the regulation of AI. One of the “godfathers” of the technology, Yoshua Bengio, recently said it was less regulated than a sandwich
A robot walks into a bar: can a Melbourne researcher get AI to do comedy?
Robots can make humans laugh – mostly when they fall over – but a new research project is looking at whether robots using AI could ever be genuinely funny.If you ask ChatGPT for a funny joke, it will serve you up something that belongs in a Christmas cracker: “Why don’t skeletons fight each other? Because they don’t have the guts.”The University of Melbourne’s Dr Robert Walton, a dean’s research fellow in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, is taking a different approach to working out whether robots can do comedy.Thanks to an Australian Research Council grant of about $500,000, he will train a swarm of robots in standup. And, at least in the beginning, they won’t use words
McCullum insists England do not have a ‘glass jaw’ and can fight back in Ashes
Brendon McCullum has insisted that England have the quality and character to fight their way back into the Ashes contest, and refused to accept the idea of players feeling sorry for themselves after starting the series with two savage defeats.“You come to this country and have a glass jaw, you have no chance,” the head coach said. “You have to be strong, tough, and you have to get on with it.”England travel to Noosa on Tuesday for a short break before moving to Adelaide to begin their preparations for the third Test, 2-0 down for the third Ashes series in succession. In 2020-21 Australia converted that lead into a 4-0 series win, but in 2023 England fought back to draw 2-2
The once formidable Kansas City Chiefs look old, tired and out of ideas
Patrick Mahomes has led his team to seven straight AFC Championship Games, winning three Super Bowls on the way. That run appears to be overThis is how great runs end. Not with a single catastrophic collapse, but with a slow drift towards the finish, looking old, tired and out of ideas. For the Chiefs, that sense of finality arrived on Sunday night, delivered by the Texans in a 20-10 defeat at home that felt more lopsided than the score.For much of this season, there had been a gnawing sense of inevitability about the Chiefs
Artificial intelligence research has a slop problem, academics say: ‘It’s a mess’
Cloudflare apologises after latest outage takes down LinkedIn and Zoom
‘Urgent clarity’ sought over racial bias in UK police facial recognition technology
New York Times sues AI startup for ‘illegal’ copying of millions of articles
I spent hours listening to Sabrina Carpenter this year. So why do I have a Spotify ‘listening age’ of 86?
Elon Musk’s X fined €120m by EU in first clash under new digital laws