Paramount Skydance's hiring of Makan Delrahim is a simple part.
Now, the media giant's CEO David Ellison hopes his new super lawyer can lure David Zaslav to sell most of the Warner Bros. discoveries.
The position learned that since the completion of the work last week, Delrahim, the Justice Department's first antitrust chief of the Trump administration, is working quickly, a strategy that will make Zas bite Ellison's bid.
The court is like this: If Zas doesn't sell it to Ellison, he might find himself having a future like Shari Redstone.
Recall that Skydance just bought the faded property of Redstone’s Media Empire Paramount (including CBS, Comedy Central, MTV and a mid-sized Hollywood studio) for only $8 billion as the heirs bit the bullet and only sold it after it was too late.
Of course, Drahim is not a dummy – given his connection to the White House, he is perhaps the most position-friendly media trader.
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His problem is that Zas is not a dummy either. Warner Bros. found that being just WBD in the media and the Wall Street circle is not the most important thing.
Prior to Ellison, backed by Oracle Tycoon's dad Larry Ellison, now the second richest man in the world – reportedly hoping he wanted another trophy property in WBD, ZAS hired a banker at Goldman Sachs to start shopping.
Interested and for good reason: While ZAS heated up at a downturn in stock price and earned a lot of money, industry insiders quietly recognized the good things he did.
Strong box office
Warner Bros. Studio has presented many large box office raffles. This is the first studio to make $4 billion at the box office so far this year, and HBO Max is profitable and popular. Its subscriber growth makes it the third largest streaming medium.
ZAS has been cutting debts for making TimeWarner transactions work.
He has been separating cable channels like CNN from streaming and studios, which will make things easier to sell, especially streaming and studio units, as it has little debt.
People close to ZAS say Goldman has received interest from some powerful new players (Netflix, Amazon and even Apple among them), which is part of streaming and studios, and above the level of Ellisons leak.
One person who knows Zaslav said: “If Ellisons want this, they'd better bring cash and a lot of cash.”
ZAS mocked CNBC's leak, and Ellison is preparing $22 to $24 per share for all WBDs.
The person added: “Zaslav wants to be in the $30 range, only for streaming and studios.”
That's where Drahim came in.
According to his stadium, WBD has only two possible suitors except Paramount Skydiving: Netflix and Amazon.
Netflix is already the first streaming service; combining it with a third-place service will face obstacles even in Trump’s more friendly Trump regulating police.
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Consent Order
Ditto for Amazon, which purchased MGM Studios in 2022.
It was also a consent order with the Federal Trade Commission that accused consumers of messing up when they signed Amazon Prime.
Delrahim believes that – or will tell ZAS he believes – the consent order adds another stumbling block to Amazon's deal, and FTC is the most dangerous.
(And the FCC, the Justice Department antitrust, God knows what else.)
And if Zas is relying on Apple's bid, he shouldn't hold his breath. iPhone manufacturers are looking for content, but want to build it organically.
That's why Ellisons is nearly radio silence.
There were many meetings at Skydance Land, just how to do it with Zas.
(Bids may have been made by the time you read this article.)
Drahim may report that John Malone (aka “Cable Cowboy), a major shareholder in WBD, who he sells directly.
Their question: This is not Zas' first rodeo – Malone is one of his mentors.
Zaslav was also a protégé of Jack Welch when General Electric owned NBCUniversal.
ZAS knows the balance sheet, he knows how to trade. Otherwise, his relatively small Discovery Inc. will not be able to manage its 2022 Mega-Merger with TimeWarner to create WBDs.
In other words, maybe it's possible that he and Goldman Sachs will convince the Trump administration to offer a green light deal for Netflix and Amazon, or that Apple eventually wants to buy something – Ellison can kiss that $22 selling price, goodbye.