Paramount’s attempt to speed up its litigation against Warner Bros. Rejected

A Delaware Chancery Court judge Morgant T. Zurn has denied Paramount‘s attempt speed up its litigation against Warner Bros. Discovery concerning its attempt to take over the company. The judge said that Paramount failed to identify any “irreparable harm.”

Paramount is suing to expedite some disclosure of information regarding the sale of Warner Bros. Discovery. They are looking for WBD to disclose how it has valued Global Networks.

Paramount and Netflix are currently fighting over WBD. Netflix, which has offered a total of $27.50 a share, would purchase just Warner Bros. Studios, HBO, and HBO Max, with the “broadcast” part of the company would be spun out and shareholders would likely receive shares in that new company. Paramount’s offer is an all-cash offer of $30 per share for all of WBD, it’s studios as well as the various networks it controls.

Paramount keeps emphasizing their $30 all-cash offer is superior to Netflix’s $23.25 cash plus $4.11 in shares (roughly $27.50) offer though consistently fails to mention that Paramount is purchasing the whole company compared to Netflix’s offer for “half.” In theory, current WBD share holders would receive shares for the new network focused company which is believe to be called something like Discovery when the company splits some time this year into two. Are the networks worth $2.50 a share more which with 2.48 billion share which “values” that part at about $6.2 billion? Before its merger with Warner Bros., Discovery Inc. in 2022 reported $10.67 billion in revenue and $34 billion in assets. Add in that the Warner Bros. also has TBS, TNT, truTV, CNN, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and TCM on top of Discovery’s channels that aren’t factored into that value, you can see how Paramount’s offer is likely far inferior.

In early December, Netflix won a bidding war that included Paramount Skydance and Comcast for Warner Bros. Discovery.

Source: Graphic Policy