Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with Comcast CEO Brian Roberts last week as the latter explores a potential bid for the former’s studio and streaming assets, TheWrap has learned.
TheWrap previously reported that Comcast has enlisted Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as financial advisors to help evaluate a potential offer. It also has been granted access to Warner’s data room to review the company’s financials.
Specific details of the conversation, which was first reported by Semafor, could not immediately be learned. A spokesperson for WBD declined to comment, while a representative for Comcast did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
The meeting comes as Netflix has also hired Moelis & Co. to explore its own bid for WBD’s studio and streaming business. Paramount has also submitted three offers for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, ranging between $19 and $23.50 per share, which were rejected by Warner for being too low.
In addition to continuing on with its planned split into Warner Bros. and Discovery Global, which remains on track for completion in April, the company’s board will also consider separate transactions for those two companies or a deal for the entire combined company. WBD also said it would consider an alternative separation structure that would enable a merger of Warner Bros. and spin off of Discovery Global to its shareholders.
Zaslav declined to discuss the company’s strategic review during last week’s earnings call, but said an “active process” is underway. While both Zaslav and chairman emeritus John Malone have expressed hope for a bidding war, it isn’t guaranteed that one will ultimately materialize.
Comcast president and soon-to-be co-CEO Mike Cavanagh recently said the company’s bar for M&A remains “very high” and that its current strategies are “really sound and durable without M&A.”
But he also acknowledged that the company would “look at things that are trading in the space around our industry” and figure out if there’s ways to add value, suggesting the company would be open to a deal for WBD’s studio and streaming following its own cable network spin off into Versant, which is set to launch as a standalone, publicly-traded company by the end of the year.
Experts previously told TheWrap that, while a Comcast bid for Warner Bros. makes strategic sense, it would face challenges securing regulatory approval from the Trump administration and beating the deep pockets of the Ellison family. But Cavanagh appeared to be less concerned about the feasibility of a bid, saying he thinks “more things are viable than maybe some of the public commentary that’s out there.”
Malone recently said he sees a scenario in which Comcast shareholders “can have ownership in a company that combines Warner with Comcast, with NBCUniversal.” But he questioned whether Roberts would be able to have “effective, hard control” of the combined company.
“I don’t know that one. I put a question mark on it,” Malone said in an Oct. 23 podcast interview with Charlie Rose. “But I believe that if Brian is willing to reduce his level of control of the resulting combination, then I think a deal could be done and get through regulatory approval. But these are all fine-tuning things.”
Shares of WBD are up 141% in the past year, 111% year to date, 144% in the past six months and 31.7% in the past month.
