New York, January 9, 2026, 21:12 ET — Market closed
Warner Bros. Discovery’s Series A shares rose about 2% on Friday as Paramount Skydance’s top lawyer urged U.S. lawmakers to take a hard look at Netflix’s planned deal for parts of WBD.
The stock has been trading like a vote on deal odds. Paramount reiterated this week that its $30-per-share all-cash tender offer — a bid to buy shares directly from investors at a set price — beats Netflix’s $27.75-per-share cash-and-stock agreement for WBD’s studios and streaming assets, with the offer set to expire on Jan. 21 unless extended. Ross Benes, a senior analyst at eMarketer, said it would be “surprising” if investors were swayed by Paramount’s arguments, though he added: “fading TV networks aren’t appealing to most investors.” Reuters
That spread is thin for a headline number, but it has room for bad news. Traders are weighing the chance of a higher bid against the risk that regulators slow the process, or block it, leaving the shares to reprice back toward fundamentals.
In a statement to a House Judiciary subcommittee, Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim called the Netflix-WBD deal “presumptively unlawful” and “clearly anticompetitive,” arguing that Netflix’s defense leaned on a market definition that treats free video platforms as substitutes for premium streaming. TheWrap
WBD has tried to keep the focus on certainty. Board chair Samuel A. Di Piazza Jr. said Paramount’s proposal “continues to provide insufficient value,” and warned that heavy debt funding would raise closing risk; WBD has described the Paramount structure as a leveraged buyout — a purchase funded largely with borrowed money.
The company has also laid out the price of switching tracks. In a filing-backed letter, WBD said exiting the Netflix agreement would trigger a $2.8 billion termination fee and bring total costs of about $4.7 billion, or $1.79 per share, once other financing-related charges are included.
On Friday, WBD ended at $28.89, about $1 below Paramount’s $30 headline price, in a broader market advance. Trading volume was about 31.8 million shares, below the stock’s 50-day average, MarketWatch data showed.
But this is still a regulatory story as much as a price story. The Associated Press reported that a deal with either bidder is expected to draw heavy antitrust scrutiny and could take more than a year to close, adding another layer of uncertainty for shareholders and deal financing.
The next hard date is Jan. 21, when Paramount’s tender offer is set to expire unless it extends the deadline. Investors will also watch for any formal moves by regulators reviewing the competing transactions and, beyond the deal noise, WBD’s next earnings update — which Nasdaq estimates for Feb. 26 — for signs of how quickly the company is stabilizing cash flow across streaming and legacy networks.
