Paramount CEO David Ellison has met with U.K. Secretary of Culture Lisa Nandy as the media giant seeks to thwart Netflix’s $83 billion deal with Warner Bros. Discovery with its own $108.4 billion hostile takeover bid, TheWrap has learned.
The meeting about issues in the film and TV industry came after Paramount previously revealed it had announced its case to the European Commission, opening the path for pre-notification discussions. In addition to officials in the U.K., Ellison has met with French president Emmanuel Macron and other European regulators, according to Bloomberg.
Representatives for Paramount and Nandy did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment. An EC spokesperson declined to comment.
In addition to overseas regulators, the Department of Justice is reviewing the tender offer.
The initial waiting period for the DOJ’s review was scheduled to expire on Dec. 23 at 11:59 p.m. ET. However, the agency has issued “requests for additional information or documentary material relevant to the offer,” which extended the waiting period deadline to 11:59 p.m. ET 10 calendar days after Paramount “certifies substantial compliance with such request.”
Netflix has said it is also engaging with regulators, including the European Commission and the DOJ. The streamer has said its deal would close within 12 to 18 months, while Paramount has said it expects a potential deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to close within a year.
The tender deadline is currently set to expire at 5 p.m. ET on June 21, though Paramount’s legal team said it would be extended after a Delaware judge dismissed its motion to expedite proceedings in its lawsuit against Warner Bros. Discovery. As of Dec. 19, less than 400,000 WBD shares had been validly tendered to Paramount Skydance.
Ellison has accused WBD’s board of withholding key information about how it valued the streamer’s deal and the proposed cable network spinoff Discovery Global, which it says “deprive stockholders of the ability to evaluate the real risk of a decrease in financial consideration or meaningfully compare Netflix’s offer to Paramount’s all-cash offer.”
In addition to the lawsuit, Ellison is threatening a proxy battle aimed at replacing WBD’s board of directors with its own slate of candidates to engage further with its offer. Paramount would also propose an amendment to Warner’s bylaws that would require shareholder approval of the Discovery Global spinoff.
Warner Bros. Discovery has not yet set a date for its 2026 annual meeting, though board chairman Samuel DiPiazza Jr. has said shareholders would vote on the Netflix deal in late spring or early summer. However, a threshold of just 20% of WBD shareholders who have held the stock for at least a year would be needed to call a special meeting before then.
The post Paramount CEO David Ellison Meets With UK Culture Secretary Amid Bids for Warner Bros. Discovery appeared first on TheWrap.
