The second round of bids for Warner Bros. Discovery took place on December 1. Updates are now coming out regarding what was offered by the companies involved in the closely watched auction process. In November, prior to the new offers being submitted, Variety reported that Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison, had sought the support of Middle Eastern funds to put together a massive $71 billion bid for WBD.
The parties involved were said to have been the Qatar Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Shortly after, Paramount came out with a statement, denying the report: “The information Variety published is categorically inaccurate. This is a confidential process, which we respect and, as such, will not be commenting until the process is over.”
Following the first bidding round, WBD requested a second slate of offers, requesting them to be higher than the initial ones. Variety is now reporting that for its new, all-cash offer, Paramount Skydance has partnered with the previously mentioned Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and Qatar Investment Authority. The outlet, however, clarified that this partnership was not in place for the company’s first bid of $24 per share on November 20.
According to the trade, the David Ellison-run company’s pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery is also being backed by Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, as well as entities like Apollo Global Management and RedBird Capital.
Depending on the magnitude of their participation, the reported involvement of the three sovereign wealth funds in the sale could have potentially triggered the need for an approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, for short. Per the official US Treasury website, CFIUS is, “an interagency committee authorized to review certain transactions involving foreign investment in the United States and certain real estate transactions by foreign persons, in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.”
According to Variety, however, their involvement in the offer, “does not meet the threshold to require approval by CFIUS.”
Elsewhere regarding this latest bidding round, it was reported that Netflix had submitted a significant, almost all-cash offer, which Bloomberg described as being in the “tens of billions of dollars.” In another report, the outlet revealed that Comcast’s bid is a combination of cash and stock. Comcast is said to have put in an offer for one portion of WBD—specifically the streaming, studio and television components.
Comcast reportedly wants to create a “larger entertainment behemoth,” which would combine its film and television assets (along with its theme parks) with Warner Bros. Discovery’s vastly recognized properties. The company also reportedly offered WBD CEO David Zaslav a “management position” in the company that would result from merging NBCUniversal with Warner Bros. Paramount similarly offered Zaslav the role of co-CEO in a merged Paramount-WBD in its initial bids for the company.
Variety further stated that it’s possible for WBD to reject the offers from Comcast, Netflix and Paramount Skydance, and proceed with its previously announced split. This would turn the company into two separate entities—Warner Bros., which would carry studio, television, and streaming assets, and Discovery Global, which would be left with the company’s cable-TV brands.