Warner Bros. Discovery puts itself up for sale

Warner Bros. Discovery is ready for a bit of price discovery.

The parent company of HBO and CNN is conducting a “strategic review,” which includes exploring all of its options for a sale—an announcement investors liked the sound of. Shares of the entertainment giant surged 10.97% today on the news.

“The Warner Bros. Discovery board will evaluate a broad range of strategic options, which will include continuing to advance the company’s planned separation to completion by mid-2026, a transaction for the entire company, or separate transactions for its Warner Bros. and/or Discovery Global businesses,” the company said in a statement.

The bidding war begins

Back in June, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it planned to spin off its legacy cable-television network, including CNN, MTV, and Nickelodeon, into a separate entity from its film studio and HBO Max.

Then in September, rumors started swirling that Larry Ellison’s Paramount Skydance Corp. could be looking to buy Warner Bros. Since then, Warner Bros. stock has surged over 50%.

But today, the company revealed it has received “unsolicited interest” from multiple parties, according to CEO David Zaslav—meaning Paramount has some competition. What we’re seeing today is a Succession-worthy tactic: Warner Bros. is going public with this information now because management has rejected multiple offers from Paramount, according to CNBC, and thinks it deserves a higher price tag.

So, who’s the lucky buyer?

One interested party might be Comcast, according to Semafor. Comcast could add Warner Bros. to Universal Pictures to expand its silver screen legacy. On top of that, combining Peacock and HBO would create the second largest streamer by subscribers.

Netflix could also throw its hat in the ring to help it expand its movies portfolio, but others (including co-CEO Greg Peters) argue that it wouldn’t add much value—and that a Netflix offer may only be to prevent competitors from getting Warner Bros. for themselves. Then there’s Apple, which is looking to build up its own content business. But the tech giant has shied away from acquisitions of late, and is spending so much money on AI that it may not have any left over for the movie business.

There’s always the original suitor, Paramount, which could still end up offering Warner Bros. the best deal if Ellison decides it's worth the spending money. In fact, it may not even be his money: Ellison has reportedly tapped Apollo Global Management for help footing the bill.

All we know is figuring out who owns what streaming platform is about to get even more confusing than it already is.—LB