Paramount Skydance $PSKY ( ▲ 1.55% ) is doing the corporate equivalent of pacing around the poker table… while refusing to put more chips in the pot.
This week, Paramount said it’s extending the deadline for Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD ( ▼ 0.6% ) shareholders to tender their shares into its hostile bid, pushing the timeline out to February 20.
The problem is obvious: extending the clock doesn’t change the offer.
And shareholders are not sentimental. They are mathematical.
The issue is simple: the bid is not winning
If Paramount wants this deal, there is only one lever that actually matters: price.
So far, it has done basically everything except raise its $30 per share offer.
It tried the Larry Ellison backstop.
It reiterated the same offer again.
It threatened a proxy fight to swap board members.
None of that increases the money a shareholder receives.
And money is the only language hostile takeovers speak fluently.
Warner Bros. just embarrassed them publicly
Warner Bros. made the situation even clearer in a statement to Variety, saying “more than 93%” of shareholders have rejected Paramount’s bid.
That is not “close.”
That is not “we’re still negotiating.”
That is a rejection so lopsided it reads like a shareholder referendum.
Paramount’s extension basically confirms what you already suspected: the offer is not getting traction.
Netflix keeps outmaneuvering them
Meanwhile, Netflix $NFLX ( ▼ 2.13% ) is doing what a winning bidder does: tightening the structure, removing friction, improving certainty.
With Netflix stock falling, it flipped its offer to all-cash to make it easier for shareholders to say yes.
No math.
No stock volatility risk.
No “what will this be worth in April?”
Just cash.
Now Netflix is offering $27.75 in cash for most of WBD, with the spinoff expected to create additional per-share value on top.
Paramount is offering $30 cash for the whole thing, but it cannot seem to convince anyone that its deal is better.
The proxy fight threat is mostly noise
Paramount’s proxy fight idea sounds aggressive, but it runs into one brutal reality:
To win a proxy fight, you need shareholder support.
To win the takeover, you need shareholder support.
If shareholders won’t tender into your offer, why would they vote to install board members who support your offer?
Same audience.
Same vote.
Same rejection.
Why Paramount is stalling anyway
The only logical explanation is that Paramount is hoping something external saves it:
A regulator slows Netflix down
Europe throws sand in the gears
Shareholders get nervous about delays and uncertainty
Some new objection causes Netflix’s deal to wobble
That might be why Ellison has been lobbying in Europe and meeting investors directly.
But this is still a deal market.
Not a persuasion contest.
Bottom line
Paramount can extend deadlines, threaten proxy fights, and do investor roadshows all it wants.
But none of it changes the key fact:
If Paramount wants Warner Bros., it has to pay more.
Because right now, Warner Bros. shareholders have already voted with their feet.