Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Warner Bros. Discovery is considering reopening talks with Paramount Skydance after Paramount sweetened its offer to buy the company last week, sources say.
Bloomberg News first reported Sunday that WBD was considering the offer.
In October, Warner Bros. said it was open to offers, and on Dec. 5, after a bidding war between Netflix and Paramount, WBD agreed to Netflix's offer. Then Paramount launched a hostile bid to buy WBD, but the board wasn't budging. Then Paramount announced that Oracle creator Larry Ellison was backing the deal with $40 billion in equity. On Jan. 20, Netflix changed its offer to all cash, then on Feb. 10, Paramount did the same and added some sweeteners.
The sweetened deal included paying the $2.8 billion termination fee that WBD would owe Netflix and an agreement to back WBD's debt costs. It also agreed to pay a ticking fee of 25 cents per share for each quarter the deal is delayed, starting in 2027, totalling about $650 million in cash per quarter.
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