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David Ellison isn't letting WBD go without a fight.
"Hello there, welcome back to GRTV News, I'm Alex, as always, going through the afternoons, latest and greatest when it comes to gaming, technology, entertainment, whatever you like and indeed whatever you love, we always have it here for you at GRTV News and in the wider Gamereactor network as a whole, so if you like what you see and you want to see more, be sure to check out Gamereactor wherever you get it from for more gaming reviews, gaming previews, movie reviews, series reviews, exclusives, interviews, world news, sports news and of course so much more."
"Without further ado though today, we're talking about Paramount trying a hostile takeover of Warner Bros to the tune of $108.4 billion, so as you're probably aware from last week, I mean I was off and I was still aware of this last week, is that Netflix has essentially agreed upon a deal with Warner Bros to buy the vast majority of it for around $82.7 billion I think is the actual figure, yeah. But Paramount, as you probably know, earlier in the year wanted to buy Warner Bros as well. This Paramount deal that's currently going ahead, I'm sorry I'm just seeing that my camera is freaking out in the corner, unable to focus on my face if I move a bit further forward, there we go. As we now know, Paramount wanted it and David Ellison is not going to let Warner Bros go without a fight as it seems he is planning a hostile takeover. So what this hostile takeover means is not like Paramount is not storming the office with guns akimbo or anything like that, instead they're just going directly to the shareholders and offering them a deal of $30 per share all cash offer. So that would be a lot simpler compared to Netflix's deal which is based on Netflix's performance, it's a bit more of a stock steal as well and it wouldn't essentially be as clear cut as this Paramount all cash buyout. Paramount has put a statement about this as they announced the hostile takeover attempt, it's worth pointing out again this is an attempt, this isn't necessarily going to go through as it's believed that the Netflix deal is a pretty binding agreement but nothing's been fully, fully solidified yet. There's going to be a little while before those types of deals go through. Paramount's strategically and financially compelling offer to WBD shareholders provides a superior alternative to the Netflix transaction which offers inferior and uncertain value and exposes WBD shareholders to a protracted multi-jurisdictional regulatory clearance process with an uncertain outcome along with a complex and volatile mix of equity and cash. That's what Paramount says about the deal which obviously they're going to say about the Netflix deal because they want their deal to go through. But yeah, people at Variety are basically saying that we're not entirely sure, Netflix hasn't responded to this, Warner Bros Discovery hasn't responded to this, so we won't know really what's happening until the coming days, show whether people will take this deal, whether they won't."
"This would deal with a lot of people's complaints about Netflix buying Warner Bros because a lot of people are complaining that Netflix buying Warner Bros will mean an end to theatrical releases as we know them because Netflix is obviously a streamer, they're going to want a lot of their stuff exclusively on streaming even if they have put stuff in cinemas before like Knives Out is a great recent example, unless they adapt to support theatres. But we know that Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos doesn't really like theatres. However, the Paramount acquisition might solve that but it won't solve problems around monopolisation which kind of are unavoidable in a lot of the ways that you look at this Warner Bros acquisition going ahead. What do you think should happen? Who do you think should end up with Warner Bros at the end of the day? Let me know all that and more and I'll see you tomorrow for some more GRTV news. Goodbye!"
