Episode summary
Netflix, Comcast and Paramount Make Bids for Warner Bros | Bloomberg Intelligence
Bloomberg Intelligence
· · Hosts: Paul Sweeney, Scarlet Fu · Guests: Geetha Ranganathan, Beth Kowitt, Jody Lurie, Calvin Butler
Summary
Warner Bros. Discovery’s sale process dominated the opening segment, with the analyst saying Paramount Skydance, Netflix and Comcast all submitted first-round, non-binding bids. The analyst said Paramount Skydance’s reported offer may land below $27 a share, well short of David Zaslav’s public target of north of $30, and argued that the process could stretch through multiple rounds. Even if a sale does not happen, Warner Bros. Discovery still has a fallback plan to split into two companies, and the analyst said the studio and streaming assets already look stronger than before.
The conversation then turned to Walmart as a case study in reputation repair. A guest argued that Doug McMillon’s decision to invest $2.7 billion in wages, training and career paths helped transform Walmart from one of America’s most criticized employers into a company with stronger retention and better employees. The guest said the strategy has also paid off for shareholders and become a Harvard Business School teaching case.
A final segment focused on travel budgets and the energy demands of AI. The credit analyst said consumers are still planning trips, but many are more likely to cut costs, choose closer destinations, and trade down to free or lower-cost activities. Later, Exelon CEO Calvin Butler said the utility is building transmission and distribution capacity for data centers while trying to protect residential customers from higher bills, and he backed an “all-of-the-above” power strategy that includes nuclear.
Key takeaways
- The analyst said Warner Bros. Discovery’s bids are only first-round, non-binding offers, so the sale process could run for a long time.
- The analyst said Paramount Skydance’s likely bid is below David Zaslav’s north-of-$30-a-share target, leaving a wide valuation gap.
- A guest argued that Walmart’s $2.7 billion investment in workers improved retention, raised the quality of hires and became a lasting part of Doug McMillon’s legacy.
- The credit analyst said travel budgets are holding up, but more consumers are cutting costs, using free options and staying closer to home.
- Calvin Butler said Exelon is using tariff and deposit structures to protect existing customers as AI data centers raise electricity demand.
- Butler said nuclear is critical to meeting surging power needs and called for an all-of-the-above approach.
Notable quotes
“these were just first round bids. They're non-binding bids”
“And $2.7 billion over a couple years. And we now know this really paid off”
“it was creating not lowpaying jobs, but a career, right”
“we're seeing more people planning on keeping their budgets the same”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio, news. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m.
Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. M&A U media M&A uh pending big big deal.
Warner Brothers Discovery. It's in discussions and accepted bids from Paramount, Skyance, uh from Netflix, uh maybe even Comcast. Uh now, I guess we wait and see what happens.
But this is when this deal crosses the tape, it's going to be a big deal. It's going to have an enterprise value of north of 90 billion. I can't wait for them to make a limited TV series about this bidding process.
Great. Yeah, exactly. Right.
Coming to uh Netflix on uh soon. Ether Ranganathan. She covers the media space for Bloomberg Intelligence as the media analyst there.
Etha, what's the latest on Warner Brothers Discovery? I guess the question now is the bids have been accepted. What are next steps?
Yeah, next steps, uh, uh, Paul, is that these were just first round bids. They're non-binding bids. uh you know as far as the news reports go it looks like all three companies that were in the race uh Paramount Sky Dance for all of Warner Brothers and then Netflix and Comcast for just the studio and streaming assets have all placed their bids.
This is going to be a very long drawn process. So we're going to have multiple rounds uh you know we've had some conflicting reports actually on what Paramount Sky Dance was offering. There was something earlier this week which suggested they were offering something north of $28 per share.
Uh they came out, refuted that report. Uh and the latest reports seem to suggest that it might be uh it's definitely going to be something much lower than that.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- hollywood bids
- media sale process
- vacation travel budgets
- data center energy demand
- reputation rehab
Companies and tickers mentioned
- NFLX
- CMCSA
- WMT
- AAL
- UAL
- ULCC
- H
- MAR
- IHG
- HLT
- Netflix Inc.
- Comcast Corp.
- Paramount Skydance Corp.
- Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.
- Walmart Inc.
- American
- United
- Spirit
- Frontier
- Hyatt
- Marriott
- IHG
- Hilton
- Excelon
Watch the episode
Watch “Netflix, Comcast and Paramount Make Bids for Warner Bros | Bloomberg Intelligence” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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