The board of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has unanimously turned down Paramount Skydance’s latest attempt to acquire the studio, saying its revised $108.4bn hostile bid amounted to a risky leveraged buyout that investors should reject.In a letter to shareholders on Wednesday, the WBD board said Paramount’s offer hinges on “an extraordinary amount of debt financing” that heightens the risk of closing. It reaffirmed its commitment to streaming giant Netflix’s $82.7bn deal for the film and television studio and other assets.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listSome investors, however, pushed back on Warner Bros. Pentwater Capital Management CEO Matthew Halbower said that the media giant’s board had “made an error” by not considering Paramount’s bid.On CNBC on Wednesday, Halbower called the deal “economically superior”.Paramount’s financing plan would saddle the smaller Hollywood studio with $87bn in debt once the acquisition closes, making it the largest leveraged buyout in history, the Warner Bros board told shareholders after voting against the $30-per-share cash offer on Tuesday. The letter accompanied a 67-page amended merger filing that laid out its case for rejecting Paramount’s offer.Paramount deal ‘remains inadequate’The revised Paramount offer “remains inadequate particularly given the insufficient value it would provide, the lack of certainty in Paramount Skydance ability to complete the offer, and the risks and costs borne by WBD shareholders should Paramount Skydance fail to complete the offer”, the Warner Bros board wrote. Advertisement Paramount, which has a market value of about $14bn, proposed to use $40bn in equity, which would be personally …
