A private equity firm owned by President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is no longer backing Paramount's hostile acquisition bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the firm confirmed Tuesday.
Days after Warner agreed to be bought by Netflix in early December, Paramount launched a rival bid that seeks to bypass Warner's management and appeal directly to its shareholders with more money. Paramount is offering $30 per Warner share to Netflix's $27.75.
Warner, one of the ''big five'' Hollywood studios, owns Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, the DC Comics universe and the Harry Potter franchise. Experts say its acquisition could supercharge the winning company and reshape the streaming wars, either by catapulting Netflix further ahead of top competitors or by cementing a new power player in Paramount.
Paramount, which is significantly smaller than Netflix, said its decision to circumvent Warner's top managers came after they ''never engaged meaningfully'' with several earlier offers by the company.
Paramount made the details of its new offer public and gave Warner shareholders an option to tender their shares — selling them directly at a set price — in support of its bid. The company is offering to buy Warner's entire portfolio, including cable networks like CNN that Netflix excluded from its bid.
In its appeal to shareholders, Paramount argued its offer may be more likely to pass regulatory scrutiny from the Trump administration.
The president has said the Warner and Netflix deal ''could be a problem'' due to the size of the combined market share.
Kushner's decision to pull his firm's financial backing takes away a possible Paramount advantage to win over Trump. The amount Kushner's Affinity Partners was contributing to the offer was not disclosed in Paramount's latest SEC filings.
