Warner Bros. Discovery has launched a formal auction of the media giant, with bankers at JPMorgan and Allen & Co. combing through expressions of interest from multiple suitors – including one from Paramount Skydance, The Post has learned.
The owner of the Warner Bros. studio, HBO and CNN held a board meeting Thursday morning with bankers and advisers to discuss the process, sources said. Prospective bidders have been sent non-disclosure agreements required to access WBD’s financials.
Of particular interest to WBD is the question of how to deal with the most aggressive of the bidders – Paramount Skydance, the newly created media giant headed by CEO David Ellison, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.
As reported by The Post, Ellison, the son of Oracle’s billionaire co-founder Larry Ellison, has been slowly ramping up pressure on Zaslav to sell. In recent weeks he has made three bids for the company, the last being a $23.50 share, $56 billion offer for WBD.
In response, WBD CEO David Zaslav has rebuffed each offer as he angles for a high-stakes bidding war that could push the sale price well above $25 a share. Zaslav is said to expect another bid shortly from Ellison – possibly a public or hostile bid – in the coming days.
Meanwhile, as The Post first reported, Ellison on advice from his legal team and bankers isn’t expected to bid much beyond $25 a share for WBD – and he believes he’s got good reason for staying pat.
Namely – he believes he’s got the backing of President Trump.
His wager is that a combination of regulatory hurdles and personal animus from the commander in chief poses major roadblocks for a slew of rival bidders including Netflix, Amazon and media giant Comcast, which currently controls Trump-hating cable network MSNBC and the woke broadcaster NBC.
A Comcast spokesman also declined to comment. But people close to the company’s CEO Brian Roberts tell The Post that Trump could be persuaded to approve the deal given that Comcast is splitting all its cable properties such as MSNBC, and its financial news network CNBC into a separate company.
Nevertheless, Ellison’s advisers believe Trump will not approve Comcast’s ownership over the anti-MAGA programming of MSNBC and NBC. Netflix and Amazon face more prosaic though equally difficult hurdles involving antitrust.
A rep for WBD declined to comment. A Paramount Skydance spokeswoman declined comment.
Zaslav, the veteran media executive, is said now to be resigned to a sale, which he believes will cap a successful three-year stint at WBD that began with the combination of Discovery Inc., and Warner Media, spun out of AT&T.
After a slow start, Zaslav made headway slashing debt and rebuilding its various brands.
That resulted in the creation of the first studio to surpass $4 billion in box office revenues this year after a string of hits, while his HBO Max streaming service is now ranked No. 3 with 73 million global subscribers.
If Ellison does raise his offer, WBD’s would have doubled its stock price amid the takeover drama. Zaslav is planning to split WBD into two units, one housing its studio and streaming and the other its cable properties.
Zas has been optimistic he can force Ellison’s and the other possible suitors to move their bids higher because analysts have valued just the studio and streaming units as high as $30 a share.
“(David) feels like ‘we did what he was supposed to do: Fix the company and then if he has to sell at a premium,’” said a person with direct knowledge of Zas’s thinking.
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