Netflix Co-CEO on Why They Gave Paramount 7 Days To Negotiate With Warner Bros.

In the latest turn of events in the Warner Bros. buyout deal, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has explained why the streaming juggernaut has provided a seven-day window to WBD to review Paramount‘s latest bid. In a recent interview, the long-term Netflix executive not only reaffirmed that his company’s offer is the best deal for Warner Bros. but also called out Paramount for confusing WBD shareholders with its bid.

Ted Sarandos asks Paramount to ‘put their money where their mouth is’ after Warner Bros. bid

Ted Sarandos has revealed that Netflix agreed to a brief period of renegotiations between WBD and Paramount in order to cancel out the “noise” the latter has been making with its corporate pursuit.

Despite Netflix having the “only signed deal with Warner Bros.,” Sarandos told CNBC that the seven-day window of re-opened talks has been agreed upon because Paramount has been “making a ton of noise, flooding the zone with confusion for shareholders so they don’t really understand the deal, including floating all these hypothetical offers and talking directly to the shareholders and bypassing the Warner Bros. Discovery board.”

As such, the buffer period will allow the WBD shareholders to get “exactly what they deserve, which is complete clarity and certainty about what the value of these deals are.” Moreover, Netflix intends to give Paramount “seven days to put their money where their mouth is.”

While Sarandos acknowledged the issues surrounding Netflix’s intended acquisition of Warner Bros., he predicted that a deal would materialize, one way or the other. “The Warner Bros. Discovery board has determined it was in their long-term best interest to sell these assets. So there is going to be a deal,” he said.

Explaining why a union with Netflix would be better for Warner Bros., Sarandos noted, “If you look at the Disney-Fox merger, they went from making 33 movies a year to making about 20. That’s a bad outcome. And that’s exactly what Paramount is proposing in their bid. What we’re doing is keeping them alive. We are investing in them at the rate that they’re producing films today, plus what we’re releasing for Netflix today, and growing that business.”

Notably, Warner Bros. has rejected Paramount’s $30 per share bid to acquire the entertainment company and now awaits its “best and final offer.”

Source: Comingsoon.net