Warner Bros. Discovery may upend Netflix deal after getting revised bid from David Ellisons Paramount

Warner Bros.Discovery said Tuesday that it will consider a revised offer by Paramount Skydance to upend its nearly sealed Netflix deal after the hostile bidder upped its $78 billion offer by another $2.6 billion.The real reason for the company’s softening position to the offer by Paramount Skydance appears to have little to do with money and more with the uncertain regulatory environment faced by Netflix, On The Money has learned.WBD investors must ultimately approve any transaction and they are growing increasingly worried that the Netflix deal, one that layers its No.

1 streaming service with WBD’s No.3, won’t pass regulatory muster here and in Europe.As The Post has reported, White House antitrust regulators are scrutinizing the deal and whether Netflix is growing into a monopoly under Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

For Netflix to take total control of the deal, and for them to get paid, investors could wait out two years of investigations and then litigation that the streaming giant might not win.If, on the other hand, they just take what Paramount is offering with few regulatory hurdles, they can bank their winnings and go home.Bankers for Paramount Skydance have been hammering these points for weeks now, with a hostile offering appealing directly to investors after the Warner Bros.board announced in December it had landed on Netflix’s proposed $73 billion deal to buy its streamer and studio.

And they are gaining converts including famed value investor Mario Gabelli, who previously told The Post he favors the Paramount deal because it’s clean, has regulatory certainty and believes “cash is king.”Warner Bros.made no mention of these machinations in its press release late Tuesday announcing that its board has determined the “revised proposal from Paramount Skydance could reasonably be expected to lead to a ‘company superior proposal.'”Rather, the company stated that Paramount Skydance — known as PSKY and run by David Ellison, an indie pr...