David Ellison extends deadline for Warner Bros. Discovery takeover offer

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is outwardly nonetheless hopeful that buyers will approve his $108.4 billion hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount Skydance announced Thursday that it is extending its all-cash supply to accumulate the storied studio, and giving buyers till February 20, 2026 to simply accept. The corporate’s earlier supply expired on January 21, however with a lawsuit in the works and a revised Netflix deal to compete with, Paramount Skydance needs to remain within the dialog.

Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery initially introduced their $82.7 billion acquisition agreement in December 2025. Netflix’s deal is for a good portion, however notably not all, of Warner Bros. Discovery because it exists right this moment. If authorised, the streaming service would purchase Warner Bros. movie studios, New Line Cinema, HBO, HBO Max, the corporate’s theme parks, sport studios and choose linear channels like TNT, however not the gathering of actuality TV and information programming that Warner Bros. Discovery calls “Global Networks.”

Paramount Skydance made its competing offer of $108.4 billion for all of Warner Bros. Discovery just a few days later in December, with the advice that shareholders reject the Netflix deal. So as to add strain, Paramount Skydance additionally sued Warner Bros. Discovery in January alleging that the corporate had not offered ample details about why it favored Netflix over Paramount. Past providing extra money, Paramount contends its deal is extra prone to be authorised by regulators as a result of proudly owning Warner Bros. does not “entrench Netflix’s market dominance.” Warner Bros. Discovery claims that funding for Paramount’s deal “stays insufficient” and that the corporate is unsure Paramount Skydance will really have the ability to full the deal.

David Ellison was beforehand in a position to merge Skydance with Paramount utilizing the monetary backing of his billionaire father Larry Ellison, and the Ellison household’s pleasant relationship with the Trump administration. Promising to be sure that CBS Information represents “a variety of viewpoints” by way of a newly appointed ombudsman, and that the merged Paramount Skydance will not create any variety, fairness and inclusion packages was sufficient to get the FCC to approve the merger. Ellison might need thought buying Warner Bros. Discovery can be equally simple, however a minimum of thus far that hasn’t labored out as deliberate.