Warner Board Says Paramount Agreed To Raise Offer To $31 A Share Or More If Two Sides Engaged

As Paramount continued to lob offers for Warner Bros. Discovery, that continued to be rejected, all at $30 a share in cash, the big question from Wall Street to Hollywood has been why not raise the bid.

It seems that may happen as WBD announced that is entering seven days of deal talks with the David Ellison company even as it continues to stand by its agreement with Netflix. Warner says that the Ellison camp had verbally agreed to boost its bid to $31 or higher if two the sides engaged, which WBD today has agreed to do.

“On February 11th, a senior representative of your financial advisor communicated orally to a member of our Board that PSKY would agree to pay $31 per WBD share if we engage with you, and that $31 is not PSKY’s best and final proposal,” WBD’s board said in a letter to Paramount it released today.

“We are writing to inform you that Netflix has agreed to provide WBD a waiver of certain terms of the Netflix merger agreement to permit us, through February 23, to engage with PSKY to clarify your proposal, which we understand will include a WBD per share price higher than $31. We seek your best and final proposal.

“To be clear, our Board has not determined that your proposal is reasonably likely to result in a transaction that is superior to the Netflix merger. We continue to recommend and remain fully committed to our transaction with Netflix and have scheduled a special meeting of our shareholders on March 20, 2026 to vote on the Netflix merger agreement.”

The Netflix deal is for $27.75 a share all in cash, a bid that it sweetened recently from a mix of cash and stock. Its deal is for Warner Bros. Studios and streaming assets while linear television under Discovery Global is to be spun off into a separate public company.

Paramount has launched an escalating series of hostile takeover offers for all of WBD. It’s latest, on Feb. 10, carried the same $30 a share base price but also a handful of sweeteners and concessions that put pressure on Warner to take a closer look. A number of WBD shareholders were also pushing the David Zaslav-led compay in that direction.

Netflix has matching rights.

The giant streamer said today that, “While we are confident that our transaction provides superior value and certainty, we recognize the ongoing distraction for WBD stockholders and the broader entertainment industry caused by PSKY’s antics. Accordingly, we granted WBD a narrow seven-day waiver of certain obligations under our merger agreement to allow them to engage with PSKY to fully and finally resolve this matter.”