The bidding process to determine who will take over Warner Bros. Discovery is expected to enter into a third round as Paramount Skydance angles to acquire one of Hollywood’s largest film studios.
Paramount is vying with Comcast and Netflix in a bidding process to buy out WBD, a deal that promises to shake up the entertainment industry.
On Thursday, Paramount penned a letter to WBD CEO David Zaslav expressing “serious concerns about the fairness and adequacy of the bidding process” and accused his company of abandoning “the semblance and reality of a fair transaction process,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
That letter said WBD “embarked on a myopic process with a predetermined outcome that favors a single bidder,” which it believes to be Netflix. It could imply Paramount is willing to take its offer directly to shareholders should it sense that the WBD board is leaning toward an offer from another company.
WBD responded to the letter by stating it had “robustly” complied with its fiduciary obligations.
“Please be assured that the WBD Board attends to its fiduciary obligations with the utmost care, and that they have fully and robustly complied with them and will continue to do so,” the company wrote.
Paramount holds friendly ties to the Trump administration, with the Federal Communications Commission approving its $8 billion merger with Skydance, which includes subsidiary CBS News, over the summer.
If Paramount takes control of WBD, it would own the parent company of CNN, a network repeatedly criticized by the Trump administration for espousing more liberal views, as well as HBO Max, DC Comics, Discovery Channel, and an enormous portfolio of entertainment properties that reach hundreds of millions of people.
“Who owns Warner Bros. Discovery is very important to the administration,” a senior Trump administration official told On The Money in October. “The Warner board needs to think very seriously not just on the price competition but which player in the suitor pool has been successful getting a deal done.”
HERE’S WHO IS BIDDING ON WARNER BROS DISCOVERY
Paramount has reportedly argued WBD would face obstacles closing a deal with Netflix due to antitrust issues.
Acquiring Warner’s streaming and studio assets “will entrench and extend Netflix’s global dominance in a matter not allowed by domestic or foreign competition laws,” Paramount’s lawyers wrote in the letter to Zaslav this week.