""WBD may experience more substantial losses of employees and talent during the pre-closing period" if it picked Paramount's bid over Netflix's, the WBD board of directors wrote in an SEC filing released on Tuesday morning. It flagged the same issue in a January filing. Although WBD chose Netflix's acquisition offer for its studio and HBO assets, the company is formally giving Paramount one more chance to raise its bid for the entire company, after nine previous offers."
"Paramount has promised investors $6 billion in so-called "synergies," or cost savings, if it were to buy all of WBD. WBD's board said those efficiencies are "likely to come from workforce/headcount reductions," especially "given the overlapping nature of the studio, streaming and linear networks businesses" of Paramount and WBD."
""Where do you think synergies come from? Cutting jobs," Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at the UBS media conference in mid-December. Netflix has told shareholders it expects to save between $2 billion and $3 billion if it wins and takes over assets that include HBO, HBO Max, and WBD's studio."
Warner Bros. Discovery warned that selecting Paramount Skydance over Netflix could cause substantial employee and talent losses during the pre-closing period. Paramount has proposed $6 billion in synergies if it acquired all of WBD, and WBD's board said those efficiencies are likely to come from workforce and headcount reductions given overlapping studio, streaming, and linear networks. WBD formally favored Netflix's offer for studio and HBO assets but has given Paramount another opportunity to increase its bid after multiple prior offers. Netflix projects $2–3 billion in savings largely from avoided licensing costs; executives acknowledge cost cuts may include layoffs.
Read at Business Insider
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]