I got a weird email from E*Trade with the subject header: WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY, INC. Corporate Action Notice.
In the email it started: “We are writing to notify you that there is A TENDER OFFER for WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY, INC..”
There were things to click but they weren’t very informative, and I have no idea what I should be entering in the boxes if I did want to sell, which after some internet reading, I decided I did not want to do.
So basically we’re currently in a world where there is no anti-trust. Lina Kahn was doing a great job under Biden getting us back to a semblance of normality and that is now completely gone, replaced by corruption. Markets, particularly entertainment and media markets, are rushing to consolidate power, both of the monopoly kind and the political kind. Everyone wants the same kind of ability to affect politics that Fox News has.
Netflix wants to buy WB and WB wants to be bought by Netflix and they’re waiting for approval from the government. This isn’t great for the consumer, but it isn’t as bad as what’s going on here.
Paramount (along with foreign interests and maybe Trump’s son-in-law) ALSO wants to buy WB. But WB doesn’t want to be bought by them. So they’re trying to do a hostile takeover.
The hostile takeover involves buying as many shares as they can, including from regular investors like me.
Recall that Paramount cancelled Colbert’s late show, presumably because Trump asked them to. (Though unlike the case with Jimmy Kimmel, they claimed it was cost-related. The timing is weird though.) Paramount, as Colbert noted, has also done some shady bribing of Trump instead of fighting Trump presumably because they want the corrupt administration to rule in their favor. This is not ok. And Bari Weiss, who is evil, has taken over CBS (one of the subsidiaries) and is trying to turn it into another Trump mouthpiece. (Fortunately ratings are dropping because turns out Fox News viewers are still watching Fox News, not CBS, and nobody else wants to watch Bari Weiss or Erika Kirk.) So, to sum: Pro-Trump forces in Paramount want Warner Brothers for monopoly and propaganda purposes.
Netflix is the lesser of two evils here. But in an ideal world neither of these mergers would be allowed.
I should note that because I used to own AOL stock back in the day, I have exactly one share of Warner Brothers. My decision not to sell isn’t going to affect anything. It’s currently worth $28 (twenty eight dollars) and unraveling its tax bill would cost way more than whatever WB could pay above cost.
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
