Paramount Announces ‘Hostile Bid’ For Warner Bros.

On Friday, Netflix was celebrating its deal to buy Warner Bros discovery for $83 billion.

But today, Paramount Global has apparently sweetened its offer to acquire Warner (and its sibling companies including HBO and CNN) with a hostile all-cash bid of $108 billion.

Paramount has launched a hostile bid for the company that’s home to Casablanca, Batman and CNN. Just Friday, Netflix and Warner Brothers executives were celebrating a deal they had struck. n.pr/4rAWzRk

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— NPR (@npr.org) December 8, 2025 at 9:15 AM

From NPR:

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people, and his son David, the movie producer and founder of Skydance Media, took over Paramount this summer. It’s the parent company of CBS, Paramount Studios, the Paramount+ streaming service and more.

Combining with Warner would let them create a Hollywood behemoth to take on Netflix, already the world’s largest streamer.

The Ellisons are also mindful of other major movie and TV streamers, particularly Amazon, Apple, and Disney, which bulked up a few years ago by acquiring most of Fox’s entertainment assets.

Hostile bids bypass a company’s board and take the offer directly to shareholders. The Paramount offer equates to $30 per share, all in cash, as opposed to Netflix’s offer, which is a $27.75 mix of cash and stock.

It’s not lost on anyone that Larry Ellison has deep ties to Donald Trump as a friend, donor and informal adviser. Trump’s administration regulators would have to approve such a deal.

Also – Ellison’s bid includes Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, as well as from Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.