Feb. 28 at 5:00 AM
$NFLX Paramount/Skydance appears to have paid a steep strategic price for Warner Bros. Discovery in what could become the largest leveraged buyout in history,
taking on a heavily indebted and operationally challenged asset at a time of secular decline in linear television, while Netflix exited at an opportune moment,
avoided regulatory and balance-sheet risk, collected a
$2.8 billion breakup fee, and redirected focus toward
$20 billion in content investment and share repurchases — a move investors clearly rewarded as NFLX surged;
the core debate now is whether Paramount has transformed two subscale media players into a viable scaled competitor with 210+ million streaming subs and meaningful U.S. share,
or whether it has overextended financially in a structurally pressured industry where execution, debt management, and regulatory clearance will ultimately determine whether this bold consolidation proves visionary or burdensome.
