(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Paramount launches hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery at $30 per share, trying to upend Netflix deal

Paramount is taking its Warner Bros. Discovery purchase effort straight to shareholders.

12/8/25 9:35AM

The war to buy Warner Bros. Discovery may not be finished just yet. Paramount Skydance, which seemed like the runaway winner of the deal until late last month, has now launched a hostile takeover offer for the entertainment giant, hoping to stop Netflix in its tracks.

Paramount said Monday it has commenced an all-cash tender offer to buy WBD shares from existing shareholders at $30 each. It’s worth noting that the value is just $2.25 per share better than Netflix’s agreed-upon deal — but Paramount is seeking to buy all of WBD, not just its streaming and studio businesses like Netflix.

Warner values Netflix's offer at around $31 to $32 a share because Warner shareholders would also get several dollars of value out of the cable business that gets split off, The Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter.

“Despite Paramount submitting six proposals over the course of 12 weeks, WBD never engaged meaningfully with these proposals which we believe deliver the best outcome for WBD shareholders. Paramount has now taken its offer directly to WBD shareholders and its Board of Directors to ensure they have the opportunity to pursue this clearly superior alternative,” Paramount said in a statement.

While hostile takeovers are generally a long shot, this situation is a bit different as the move is an attempt to leapfrog a different takeover. Netflix is also facing a wall of opposition to its deal. President Trump over the weekend said the Netflix-WBD merger “could be a problem” and that he would speak to economists about it.

When asked in an interview Monday morning if the President was in his corner, Ellison said on CNBC: “What I would say is I'm incredibly grateful for the relationship I have with the president. And I also believe he believes in competition. And when you fundamentally look at the marketplace, allowing the No. 1 streaming service to combine with the No. 3 streaming service is anticompetitive.”

Shares of Paramount and Warner Bros. spiked in response to the news on Monday morning. Shortly after the open, Warner Bros. was trading at $27.80, still well below the tender offer’s price.

Shares of Netflix were recently down about 3%.

Tasha Matsumoto

12h

Stocks dip slightly, crude oil climbs amid conflict with Iran

Despite the largest-ever release of oil from the International Energy Agency’s strategic reserves, crude oil continued to climb.

Matt Phillips13h

AI “bottleneck” stocks are the big winners halfway through a tumultuous week

Memory stocks and chip machinery companies are bouncing Wednesday, following a strong Oracle earnings report that bolstered confidence in the durability of the AI data center build-out.

In fact, Sandisk is the top performer of the S&P 500 so far this week, rising more than 21% from Friday’s close, as of shortly after 2 p.m. ET. Memory chip maker Micron is second in line, up more than 13% in weekly gains, and hard disk drive maker Western Digital is also getting a lift.

Other big winners so far this week are some of the so-called semicap shares — makers of the ultraprecise machines that turn silicon into actual semiconductors — with Lam Research and KLA Corp both racking up gains of about 10% on the week. Applied Materials is up about 8% this week.

Thematically speaking, both memory stocks like Sandisk and Micron as well as semicap shares like KLA have been part of the “buy the bottleneck” trade, in which investors buy companies they believe sit at key pinch points in the AI supply chain and therefore have pretty tremendous pricing power. Through that lens, the stocks’ bounce might reflect some additional excitement about the durability of the data center boom after Oracle’s results, which included a larger-than-expected capex number as well as sales guidances that was higher than Wall Street was forecasting.

But the bounce also may be the less interesting market phenomenon of mean reversion rearing its head, as these stocks were also some of the most beaten down in the S&P 500 last week, when Sandisk lost 17% and Lam lost about 15%, for example. So, some snapback may merely be a market reflex.

Oracle jumps after Q3 results exceed expectations, boost to sales guidance

Max Knoblauch15h

Papa John’s spikes following report of a $47-per-share take-private offer from Qatari investment fund Irth Capital

A few weeks after announcing it would close 300 stores by the end of next year, Papa John’s is drawing fresh take-private interest from Irth Capital, an investment fund backed by a member of the Qatari royal family.

Papa John’s shares were up 19% on Wednesday afternoon, on pace for their best day since February 2025.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Irth is offering $47 per share for PZZA, valuing the company at about $1.5 billion. The fund currently holds a roughly 10% stake in Papa John’s, per the report.

Irth has tried to take Papa John’s private before, offering $60 per share in a joint bid with Apollo Global in June of last year. In October, Apollo Global again offered to take the company private at $64 per share. That offer was later withdrawn.

Broadly, the pizza category is being increasingly dominated by Domino’s, which opened 700 stores globally last year and has a market cap 9x greater than Irth’s latest reported offer for Papa John’s.

Exclusive | Papa John’s Draws Fresh Takeover Interest

Jon Keegan

17h

How Oracle is de-risking its AI boom

Oracle released its third-quarter earnings yesterday, and the company is making it clear that its ambitious AI growth is grounded in reality and cold hard cash.