Major investors involved in the Warner Bros-Paramount merger deal are looking upon the two deals as a toss-up and believe that if Paramount is serious about the deal, it has to come up with another offer.
As reported by Reuters investors expressed that Paramount Skydance’s latest offer to buy Warne Bros Discovery still is not good enough for prominent shareholder Harris Oakmark.
Warner Bros’ fifth largest shareholder, owning 96 million shares or about 4% of shares as of the end of September, said it would hold out for more from the Ellison family-controlled Paramount.
Harris Oakmark, Director of US Research Alex Fitch said “The changes in Paramount’s new offer were necessary, but not sufficient and we see the two deals as a toss-up, and there is a cost to changing paths.
“If Paramount is serious about winning, they’re going to need to provide a greater incentive,” added Harris.
Paramount on Monday December 22, 2025 amended its $108.4 billion hostile bid for the storied Hollywood studio to bolster its financing.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, whose son David owns Paramount, is now personally guaranteeing $40.4 billion of the bid to secure Warner Bros, which owns HBO Max and controls the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Superman franchises.
While the Warner Bros investors are unsure whether they would accept the offer or if regulators don’t approve the deal, Paramount also increased the fee to $5.8 billion from $5 billion to match a competing offer from Netflix, although it didn’t raise its $30-a-share bid.
Investor Thomas Poehling, who owns 484,000 shares of Warner Bros and 639,000 of Paramount, said he’ll likely take the revised offer if Netflix doesn’t counter because Paramount has a better chance of winning approval from regulators.
The board of Warner Bros, unanimously recommended on Wednesday that shareholders reject Paramount’s earlier bid in favor of Netflix’s offer, saying the financing didn’t provide a “full backstop.”
Even though Netflix’s cash offer of $23.25 a share is lower, the board said its bid was superior because the financing was more secure and it includes $4.50 in shares of Netflix common stock as well as whatever Warner Bros can get when it spins out Discovery Global as part of the deal.
Yussef Gheriani, chief investment officer of Chicago investment firm IHT Wealth Management, which owns 16,000 shares of Warner Bros, 6,500 shares of Netflix and 60,000 of Paramount said, “It’s really rare to get an opportunity to add top shelf media assets to your portfolio.”
“The bidding war speaks to the quality of Warner Bros assets,” he added.
Warner Bros investors now have until January 21, extended from January 8, to accept or reject the so-called tender offer.
