Business
Paramount Skydance launches hostile bid for WBD ‘to finish what we started,’ CEO Ellison tells CNBC
Paramount Skydance is launching a hostile bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery after it lost out to Netflix in a monthslong bidding war for the legacy assets, the company said Monday.
Paramount will go straight to WBD shareholders with an all-cash, $30 per share offer. That’s the same bid WBD rejected last week and equates to an enterprise value of $108.4 billion.
The offer is backstopped with equity financing from the Ellison family and the private equity firm RedBird Capital as well as $54 billion in debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo Global Management, Paramount said in a news release.
A portion of the equity financing comes from outside Middle Eastern financing partners including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Company PJSC, and the Qatar Investment Authority. Another portion derives from Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. Kushner is U.S. President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law.
Those partners have agreed to “forgo any governance rights,” including board seats, as part of their non-voting equity investment, according to a Paramount filing. The modifications allow the deal to be outside of the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS.
Shares of Paramount gained 9% Monday. Warner Bros. Discovery’s shares rose about 4% while Netflix was down 3%.
“We’re really here to finish what we started,” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday. “We put the company in play.”
Paramount Skydance began its hunt for Warner Bros. Discovery in September, submitting three bids before WBD launched a formal sale process that ultimately brought in other suitors.
On Friday, Netflix announced a deal to acquire WBD’s studio and streaming assets for a combination of cash and stock, valued at $27.75 per WBD share, or $72 billion. Paramount had been bidding for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, including those assets and the company’s TV networks like CNN and TNT Sports.
“We’re sitting on Wall Street, where cash is still king. We are offering shareholders $17.6 billion more cash than the deal they currently have signed up with Netflix, and we believe when they see what it is currently in our offer that that’s what they’ll vote for,” Ellison said.
Ellison said Monday he places a value of $1 per share on the linear cable assets, which are set to trade as a separate public entity called Discovery Global in mid-2026. WBD executives have privately valued the assets closer to $3 per share.
Paramount has repeatedly argued to the WBD board of directors that keeping Warner Bros. Discovery whole is in the best interest of its shareholders.
Paramount made a bid on Dec. 1 and heard back from WBD that it needed to make certain alterations to the offer, Ellison said Monday. When Paramount made the changes and upped its bid to $30 per share, Ellison never heard back from WBD CEO David Zaslav, he said.
Ellison said he told Zaslav via text message that $30 per share wasn’t the company’s best and final offer, suggesting the company is willing to bid higher still.
Ellison argued Paramount’s deal will have a shorter regulatory approval process given the company’s smaller size and friendly relationship with the Trump administration. He called Trump a believer “in competition” and said Paramount’s combination with WBD will be “a real competitor to Netflix, a real competitor to Amazon.”
Ellison also threw cold water on Netflix’s chances of regulatory approval.
“Allowing the No. 1 streaming service to combine with the No. 3 streaming service is anticompetitive,” Ellison said.
CNBC reported Friday that the Trump administration was viewing the deal with “heavy skepticism,” and Trump said Sunday that the market share considerations could pose a “problem.”
Netflix agreed to pay Warner Bros. Discovery $5.8 billion if the deal is not approved, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday. Warner Bros. Discovery said it would pay a $2.8 billion breakup fee if it decides to call off the deal to pursue a different merger.
Netflix, for its part, once again championed the deal as positive for shareholders, consumers and the media industry as a whole when its top leadership spoke at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference on Monday.
Co-CEO Greg Peters said they recognize the Netflix deal came as a shock but called the Warner Bros. studio and HBO Max content complementary to Netflix’s business.
Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the acquisition would protect jobs at a time when layoffs have been rampant across media: “In the offer that Paramount was talking about today, they also were talking about $6 billion of synergies. Where do you think synergies come from? Cutting jobs. So we’re not cutting jobs, we’re making jobs.”
— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.
Mumbai: Indian stock markets opened sharply lower on Tuesday as investors booked profits after the recent rally.
Sentiment weakened further after reports suggested that US President Donald Trump may consider imposing new tariffs on Indian rice, raising fresh worries about unresolved trade issues between Washington and New Delhi.
The Sensex slipped 380 points, or 0.45 per cent, to 84,723 in early trade. The Nifty also moved in the same direction, falling 124 points, or 0.48 per cent, to 25,837.
“On the technical front, the Nifty now holds immediate support in the 25,800–25,850 range, while resistance is seen around 26,100–26,150, where repeated intra-day rejection highlights strong overhead supply,” experts said.
“A decisive breakout above this area will be essential for the index to regain upward momentum, while a sustained move below support may extend the ongoing consolidation,” they added.
The tone in the market remained cautious as major heavyweight stocks came under pressure.
Several blue-chip companies led the decline on the Sensex. Asian Paints, Tech Mahindra, Trent, Eternal, Reliance Industries, TCS, Ultratech Cement, Tata Steel, M&M, Tata Motors PV, HCL Tech, and BEL were among the top laggards, with losses of up to 2.5 per cent.
Only Hindustan Unilever and Bharti Airtel managed to stay in positive territory on the 30-share index.
The weakness was visible across the broader market as well. The Nifty MidCap index dropped 0.64 per cent, while the Nifty SmallCap index was down 0.61 per cent.
Sector-wise, the Nifty IT and Metal indices were among the worst performers, slipping 0.9 per cent and 0.8 per cent, respectively.
The Nifty Auto index also fell 0.8 per cent, while the Realty index declined 0.6 per cent.
Analysts said that the market mood turned cautious as global trade concerns resurfaced, prompting investors to trim their positions and wait for further clarity.
Business
Musk’s Starlink lists premium satcom prices for India, then pulls them back saying ‘glitch’ made ‘dummy test data’ visible – The Times of India
NEW DELHI: Elon Musk’s Starlink on Monday announced inaugural prices for its satellite venture in India and, as expected, these were many times more than a regular high-speed broadband connection that is currently being provided by terrestrial providers such as Airtel and Reliance Jio.The company put a Rs 8,600 monthly tariff for its satcom services in India, with a hefty additional Rs 34,000 as one-time charge for the requisite hardware.However, as its premium pricing started to create hectic chatter on social media, especially when it’s still some time before it can launch services as the govt continues work on satcom spectrum allocation and its charges, the company withdrew the announcement from its website, blaming a “glitch” for making “dummy test data visible. “The Starlink India website is not live, service pricing for customers in India has not yet been announced, and we are not taking orders from customers in India. There was a config glitch that briefly made dummy test data visible, but those numbers do not reflect what the cost of Starlink service will be in India,” Lauren Dreyer, VP of Starlink Business Operations, said on X. “The glitch was quickly fixed. We’re eager to connect the people of India with Starlink’s high-speed internet, and our teams are focused on obtaining final government approvals to turn service (and the website) on,” she said.Earlier in the day, the company said its India services will “work in all weather” with an “over 99.9% uptime”. It promised that the services are easy to initiate. “Just plug in and start using,” the company said, while promising to provide “unlimited data” and a 30-day trial period.However, the prices – if true – would be a far cry to the dirt-cheap tariffs that Indian internet consumers are used to.On mobile phones, the price per GB of data is less than Rs 10, and monthly packages are under Rs 400 for unlimited 5G mobile data, for example on Airtel. For home broadband on optical fibre, the Sunil Mittal-led company charges just Rs 499 per for a connection which comes with a speed of 40MBPS. Not only this, at Rs 599 per month, they also offer 29 OTT streaming services. The installation charges for home broadband are just Rs 1,500 on Airtel, which itself is an advance payment and can be adjusted in future payments.On the other hand, Reliance Jio’s up to 30 MBPS speed entry-level plan for home broadband costs Rs 399 (excluding GST), with a one-time installation charge of Rs 2,500 (of which Rs 1,500 is refundable security).For Starlink, these are early days and despite giving out the consumer prices (though withdrawn now), the company is not in a position to talk about when it will begin services. This is because there is still no clarity on when the spectrum for satellite communications will be provided by the govt.There are currently discussions, and differences of opinion, between regulator Trai and the department of telecom (DoT) — the nodal ministry on communications matters — regarding the charges that satcom companies need to pay to the govt. Until these issues are resolved, there is no chance of a satcom service beginning consumer services in the country.Starlink, however, is in the process of doing the groundwork for beginning services. It has started hiring in India before services begin commercially while also starting work on setting up the requisite ground infrastructure. Also, it needs to get a final approval from the law-enforcement agencies regarding its infrastructure, including mandated interception and data privacy rules, before beginning any commercial operation.It is believed that while having an aspiration to build its business in India’s urban centres, Starlink will initially find higher takers in rural and mobile unserved areas, apart from specialised use cases in strategic areas such as defence, mining, maritime, and enterprises.
Last Updated:
After RBI cut the repo rate to 5.25 percent, HDFC Bank, PNB, Bank of Baroda, Indian Bank, Bank of India and Bank of Maharashtra reduced lending rates, easing EMIs for borrowers.
RBI MPC Meeting 2025: Repo Rate Cut Today Latest News
After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.25% in its December MPC meeting, several major banks have begun reducing their lending rates. This will directly ease the burden on borrowers tied to MCLR, RLLR, RBLR and other benchmark-linked loans.
With these revisions, many existing customers can expect either lower EMIs or, depending on their loan agreement, a shorter repayment tenure.
HDFC Bank trims MCLR
HDFC Bank has lowered its Marginal Cost of Funds-based Lending Rates (MCLR) by up to 5 basis points across different loan tenures.
New MCLR range: 8.30% to 8.55%
Earlier range: 8.35% to 8.60%
This will benefit borrowers whose home or other retail loans are linked to MCLR.
PNB reduces RLLR
Punjab National Bank (PNB) has cut its Repo Linked Lending Rate (RLLR) from 8.35% to 8.10%, including the 10 bps BSP.
The new rate is effective from December 6, 2025, following the RBI’s repo rate cut.
The bank confirmed the update through its filing on the BSE website.
Bank of Baroda lowers BRLLR
Bank of Baroda has revised its Benchmark Retail Loan Lending Rate (BRLLR) to 7.90%, down from 8.15%.
This reduction will offer slight but meaningful relief to borrowers servicing retail loans.
Indian Bank cuts RLLR
Indian Bank has dropped its repo-linked benchmark lending rate from 8.20% to 7.95%, effective December 6, 2025.
The new rate will apply across the bank’s loan portfolio.
Bank of India revises RBLR
Bank of India has reduced its Repo Based Lending Rate (RBLR) from 8.35% to 8.10%, effective December 5, 2025.
The bank said the revision follows the RBI’s downward adjustment in the repo rate.
Bank of Maharashtra cuts home & auto loan rates
Bank of Maharashtra has gone a step further by cutting both home and car loan rates.
Home loan: reduced from 7.35% to 7.10%
Car loan: reduced from 7.70% to 7.45%
The bank has also waived all processing fees, reducing the upfront cost for new borrowers.
Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. December 09, 2025, 06:30 IST
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