Netflix stock surges as it walks away from Warner Bros deal
Al Jazeera
Netflix declined to raise its proposal to match a higher one from Paramount for Warner Bros, saying the deal was no longer attractive.
Netflix’s stock is surging as investors applauded its decision to exit the race for Warner Bros Discovery, a months-long bidding war with Paramount Skydance for some of Hollywood’s most prized assets.
The stock jumped more than 10 percent on Friday. That came on the heels of Netflix’s decision on Thursday evening that it would not match Paramount’s latest $31 per share bid or raise its offer of $27.75 a share for Warner Bros’s studio and streaming assets, stating that the deal was “no longer financially attractive”.
Warner had given Netflix four business days to come up with a counteroffer for Paramount’s latest bid — but Netflix, instead, responded less than two hours later, declining to raise its proposal. It said the new price it would have to pay made the deal “no longer financially attractive”.
“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros′ iconic brands,” Netflix’s co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said in a joint statement. “But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
The decision was welcomed by investors. Shares of the streaming giant had shed more than 18 percent since Netflix announced its deal with Warner Bros on December 5.
