Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “The streaming wars just got messier.
“Paramount has crashed the party with a hostile $30-a-share bid for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD).
“Here’s where it gets messy, Paramount want the whole pie, whereas Netflix’s bid excludes the legacy Networks business so, depending on how you value that slice, the sums on who has the better offer can swing either way.
“The one certainty is that Paramount’s pitch is all cash – unlike Netflix’s 85 per cent cash mix – but it’s silent on the $2.8 billion break-up fee WBD would owe if it walked away from Netflix.
“For Netflix, it’s a largely expected twist, but still an unhelpful turn of events as critics question whether now is the right time to abandon its build-not-buy strategy.”
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