Activist Investor Pushes Warner Bros. to Walk Away From Netflix Deal
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's your morning brief for Wednesday, February 11th. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal. Activist investor Ancora Holdings has said it will push Warner Bros. Discovery to walk away from the $72 billion deal it signed with Netflix. Ancora has built a roughly $200 million stake in Warner and yesterday emailed Warner CEO David Zaslav to say it's considering a proxy fight if Warner's board doesn't negotiate the best deal for shareholders to instead sell to Paramount Skydance. Warner has consistently rebuffed Paramount's $78 billion offer, arguing the Netflix deal has greater value, more secure financing, and a cleaner path to being approved by regulators. House lawmakers have rejected an attempt by GOP leader Mike Johnson to block challenges to President Trump's tariff policies.
What is the activist investor's proposal for Warner Bros.?
Democrats were joined by several Republicans who have criticized Trump's aggressive use of tariffs and their questionable legal underpinning. A series of high-profile votes could begin as soon as today, including a Democratic challenge to Trump's tariffs on Canada. And the European Union has approved Google's $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity startup Wiz, making it Alphabet's largest-ever takeover.
The deal was cleared by U.S. antitrust authorities last year, with the European Commission saying that the takeover is unlikely to impact competition in the bloc. Asian stocks ended the day mainly higher, European stocks are mostly down in midday trading, and U.S. stock futures are gaining ahead of the delayed jobs report for January due at 8.30 a.m. Eastern. And we have a lot more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. You can add it to your playlist on your smart speaker or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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