New York, Jan 7, 2026, 16:56 EST — After-hours
Netflix (NFLX.O) shares were up 0.1% at $90.73 in after-hours trading on Wednesday after Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD.O) told shareholders to reject Paramount Skydance’s (PSKY.O) amended tender offer and stick with Netflix’s merger agreement. “Paramount’s offer continues to provide insufficient value,” Warner chair Samuel A. Di Piazza Jr. said. Netflix traded between $90.09 and $92.41 in the regular session; Warner Bros. Discovery was up 0.3% and Paramount Skydance fell 1.1%. Warner Bros. Discovery
The renewed rejection keeps Netflix’s stock tethered to a question bigger than subscriber churn or content slates: can the streamer close a transformational deal without paying up. For now, Warner’s board is trying to shut the door on a higher price and keep the focus on certainty.
That matters because the next catalysts are messy. A hostile bidder can come back with sweeter terms, while regulators can drag timelines and force concessions that change the math.
Warner’s board said Paramount’s plan would saddle the combined company with about $87 billion of debt, describing it as a risky leveraged buyout — a takeover funded mainly with borrowings. Paramount proposed $40 billion of equity personally guaranteed by Oracle founder Larry Ellison alongside $54 billion of debt, Reuters reported. “WBD does not want to sell to Paramount,” Ross Benes, an analyst at Emarketer, told Reuters. Reuters
Netflix said the cash-and-stock deal values Warner’s studio and streaming assets at $27.75 per share, an enterprise value of about $82.7 billion, and it expects the transaction to close 12 to 18 months after signing. The company said the financing structure is not subject to a CFIUS review — the U.S. panel that screens foreign investment for national-security risk — and that it has filed under the Hart-Scott-Rodino process, the pre-merger step required for U.S. antitrust review. Co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said Warner’s board backed “the superior proposal.” PR Newswire
CFRA analyst Kenneth Leon downgraded Netflix to Hold from Buy and cut his price target to $100 from $130, arguing the Warner deal adds leverage risk and could trigger a bidding war with Paramount. Leon said Netflix’s history of avoiding big acquisitions makes the shift harder to handicap.
Options trading also points to jittery positioning into results. Implied volatility — the options market’s estimate of future moves — sat in the top quartile of the past year, and contracts priced a roughly 50% chance of a move greater than 7.31%, or about $6.64, around the report, TheFly said.
But the cleanest path is still uncertain. Warner shareholders have until Jan. 21 to tender — hand in — their shares into Paramount’s offer, and both deals are expected to draw heavy antitrust scrutiny, the Associated Press reported.
Next up is Netflix’s own quarterly update. The company said it will post fourth-quarter 2025 results and its business outlook on Jan. 20 at about 1:01 p.m. Pacific time, followed by a live video interview with co-CEOs Sarandos and Peters, CFO Spence Neumann and executive Spencer Wang.
