Comcast CEO (CMCSA) Brian Roberts is planning to join a second round of bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery next week for just its studio and streaming businesses, according to a report by the New York Post on Friday, citing a source.
The report, citing sources, said Roberts is weighing a potential offer that could be higher than that of rivals, at around $27 or $28 a share. Roberts and his team have not come up with a final number, but if they bid, it would be a respectable premium to the roughly $25 a share already placed by Paramount Skydance (PSKY) for the entire company.
Comcast’s bid would also likely surpass the first-round bid made by Netflix (NFLX), which is also vying for the studio and streaming pieces of WBD, the report said, citing sources.
Sources told NYP that Roberts knows he needs to play hardball to win. He’s making a run at WBD despite extreme reluctance from the Trump administration to approve anything Roberts touches, given his long stewardship of the Trump-hating cable channel MS NOW, the report said.
Roberts is said to believe he has no choice due to Comcast’s challenges: a laggard streaming service in Peacock, a second-place network in NBC, and a smallish studio on top of lots of debt as he spins off MS NOW and other cable channels into a new company.
The thinking is that with a leading bid, Roberts might be able to get the green light from the WBD board and then successfully challenge in federal court any rebuttal from the Trump DOJ antitrust department, arguing that in the age of multiple streaming services and content being offered on YouTube and social media, no significant antitrust issues exist with his offer, the report said.