The claim was made as part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s dismissal of Paramount’s hostile takeover offer.
Warner Bros. Discovery went on the attack against Larry and David Ellison on Wednesday, urging shareholders to reject their hostile takeover offer and saying the Ellisons have “consistently misled” them.
Paramount, which is controlled by the Ellisons, has said that its proposed transaction has a “full backstop” from the billionaire family. But Warner Bros. Discovery said in a letter to shareholders on Wednesday: “It does not, and never has.”
The decision throws another wrench into Paramount’s frenzied, monthslong effort to buy Warner Bros. Discovery — a make-or-break attempt, analysts said, to compete with streaming giants like Netflix, Disney and Amazon. Warner Bros. Discovery agreed this month to sell a large part of its business to Netflix in a cash-and-stock deal worth $83 billion, spurning an all-cash offer by Paramount to buy all of the company for $108 billion.
Paramount, which made six offers for Warner Bros. Discovery over 12 weeks, now faces difficult decisions, including whether to raise its offer.
A spokesman for Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Netflix deal would remake Hollywood, bringing under Netflix’s auspice the HBO Max streaming service and the Warner Bros. movie and TV studio. Netflix, which far outpaces other paid streaming services in subscriber numbers, would also become a video game and consumer products colossus, controlling characters like Batman, Harry Potter and Bugs Bunny.
But Paramount has refused to surrender. Saying it wasn’t treated fairly in the auction process, the company started a hostile takeover bid last week by taking its offer directly to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders. In a letter to those shareholders, Paramount insisted that its offer “delivers superior value and a faster, more certain path to completion than the transaction announced with Netflix.”
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