Warner Bros. Discovery Reopens Paramount Talks; Invesco's Brian Levitt

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Bloomberg Tech 47 min 9 speakers 7 chapters transcribed
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Stephen Carroll 0:00
Hello, I'm Stephen Carroll. I'm in Brussels, where many of Europe's biggest decisions get made.
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Unknown 1:02
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, radio, news. Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast. with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
Stephen Carroll 1:22
This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, Warner Brothers reopens negotiations with Paramount Skydance after it proposed or hinted at raising its bid and sweetening other terms of its offer. Plus, renewed selling in several tech giants are weighing on stocks with lingering anxiety over the outlook for AI. And Thrive Capital raises more than $10 billion in its largest fund ever, giving the firm an expanded war chest. to invest in ai welcome to bloomberg tech and this is what markets look like right now we've carried over the holiday weekend in the us to the same anxiety we're going to talk later in the program about the contradiction right now at the heart of the ai trade nasdaq 100 off by a percentage point chips kind of dragging us down mag 7. bitcoin at 67 000 us dollars per token of course it continues to trade 24 7 but over the weekend a kind of three-day period there was a lot of geopolitical tension driving it
Stephen Carroll 2:16
Our top story is Warner Brothers Discovery reopening talks with Paramount Skydance. Netflix has issued them a waiver. They can do so. It's a seven-day waiver through to February 23rd, by which point they either need to give a sweetened, improved bid or something else needs to happen. Let's get the details. Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw leads our screen time team and coverage of media and entertainment. This is actually a little bit more difficult to understand than simply negotiations reopening. Talk us through the deadlines, the timeline, and what's new, Lucas.
Lucas Shaw 2:46
Well, the news is obviously that Warner Brothers has decided to talk to Paramount. They have not been speaking for a couple of months. Paramount kicked off this wholesale process last year when it kind of sent over an uninvited offer, basically, for all of Warner Brothers Discovery. It then spent a couple of months increasing its offer every few weeks, trying to win. It lost to Netflix. And Warner Brothers Discovery has spent the last couple of months sort of trashing Paramount, both sides kind of waging war in public, if you will. But Paramount has gradually increased more and more pressure, addressed more of the board's concerns, and is now at a point where I think Warner Brothers Discovery feels both out of pressure from its shareholders and just because they're sort of tired of this, that they want to engage with Paramount for a week, see what happens.
Lucas Shaw 3:32
And if they can reach a better deal, then obviously the board is going to do its fiduciary duty.
Stephen Carroll 3:37
And we had some reporting about this over the weekend before the formal announcement this morning. Part of this is one of Paramount's bankers signaling to the board that there will be an improved offer, but that they haven't yet made their best offer. What do we know about that?
Lucas Shaw 3:53
Well, Paramount has been saying for a couple of months that its offer is not last and final. And Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders have been waiting for Paramount to increase the offer from the $30 a share.

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