The board of directors of Warner Bros. Discovery has rejected Paramount Skydance’s offer to buy the holding company for $108.4 billion, Reuters reports.
The board urged Warner Bros. shareholders not to pester the offer to sell their shares to Paramount at $30 a share and not to reject the Netflix deal.
Paramount’s offer remains valid until 8 January 2026.
The board’s letter said Paramount has consistently misled shareholders and the company’s offer involves numerous and significant risks.
“We believe that a merger with Netflix is a more profitable and reliable path for our shareholders,” the letter said.
Paramount and Netflix have been battling for Warner Bros. assets for months. On 5 December, Netflix announced that it intends to buy Warner Bros. movie studios and streaming service HBO Max for $82.7 billion (at $27.75 per share). Paramount is offering to buy all of Warner Bros. including cable TV channels (CNN, TNT Sports and Discovery). On 8 December it became known that Paramount Skydance offered to buy out Warner Bros. Discovery for $108 billion at a price of $30 per share.
US President Donald Trump said that the Netflix deal with Warner Bros. “could be a problem” because Netflix has a very large market share anyway. Paramount Chairman David Ellison’s father, billionaire and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, has close ties to the White House. Paramount is trying to derail the Netflix deal and Warner Bros. has raised funding from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and Affinity Partners, a company owned by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.