Paramount Skydance has increased its bid for Warner Bros Discovery, Reuters reported on Monday, raising the stakes in the bidding war for the historic studio and its broadcast and cable TV assets in an effort to beat out rival suitor Netflix.
It could not immediately be determined how the bid was revised. Warner Bros and Paramount declined to comment, while Netflix could not immediately be reached.
The bid – which raises its previous $30 a share offer – came after a deadline that had been set by the board of Warner Bros Discovery, with the permission of Netflix, last week.
The battle for Warner’s assets has become political. On Saturday, Donald Trump told Netflix to remove the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or “face the consequences”.
On Monday, Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief executive, responded to the US president, telling BBC Radio 4 that Trump “likes to do a lot of things on social media. This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal. This deal is run by the Department of Justice in the US and regulators throughout Europe and around the world.”
Two days earlier, in an interview with Variety, Sarandos declined to say how Netflix would respond to a higher offer from Paramount. But he did say that Netflix has a “rich history” of being “willing to walk away and let someone else overpay for things”.
“The next move is up to somebody else. We have a signed deal with Warner Bros Discovery,” Sarandos said. “If someone wants to make a better deal, which the Warner Bros Discovery board has said has not happened yet, then we’ll see what happens down the road.”
But if Warner Bros Discovery agrees to Paramount Skydance’s revised offer, it will be obliged to pay a $2.8bn breakup fee to Netflix.
Last week, at the opening of a seven-day window for Paramount Skydance to improve its offer, Warner Bros Discovery said its board would engage in discussions with the company, led by David Ellison, to “seek clarity” on Paramount’s “best and final offer” in its hostile takeover attempt.