Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD), a global film, TV, cable, and streaming entertainment conglomerate, closed at $25.86, down 3.76%. Shares fell after a California federal judge paused Paramount Skydance’s (NASDAQ:PSKY) $110 billion acquisition. Investors are watching what antitrust developments come next. Trading volume reached 44.2M shares, coming in about 115% above its three-month average of 20.6M shares. Warner Bros. Discovery IPO’d in 2005 and has grown 224% since going public.
How the markets moved today
S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) closed at 7,445, down 0.17%, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) finished at 25,508, down 0.05%. Among global media and entertainment sector rivals, Netflix closed at $67.60, down 1.96%, and Walt Disney ended at $96.44, down 1.26%, as merger headlines kept Warner Bros. Discovery and its peers in focus.
What this means for investors
The Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance deal continued to run into new hurdles today, this time as a federal judge placed a 14-day pause on the acquisition via a temporary restraining order. The TV and streaming juggernauts had previously hoped to close the deal by July 22nd, but will now have an August 3rd hearing to see if the pause should be extended.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta stated, “This is a critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day.” Today’s news comes one week after the Writers’ Guild of America also filed a lawsuit to stop the merger, as they deem that it would “threaten the economic and creative health of the American entertainment industry.”
WBD stock currently trades 20% below PSKY’s original $31-per-share cash offer, as the market remains uncertain of the deal’s completion. Meanwhile, Paramount is on the hook to pay a quarterly $0.25-per-share “ticking fee” if the deal is not closed by September 30th.
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