Discovery completed its acquisition of WarnerMedia from AT&T on Friday. The close of the transaction births new company Warner Bros. Discovery, which will begin trading on the Nasdaq Monday under the new ticker symbol “WBD.”
WarnerMedia owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, Warner Bros., DC Films, New Line Cinema, TBS, TNT, TruTV, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, Turner Sports and Rooster Teeth, among other brands, and is part owner of the CW Network along with Paramount.
Discovery is the parent of Discovery Plus, Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Travel Channel, Turbo/Velocity, Animal Planet, Science Channel and OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).
At close of the WarnerMedia spinoff, AT&T had said it expected to reap $43 billion (and the new WBD to assume up to approximately $43 billion of additional debt). AT&T aimed to use the proceeds from the WarnerMedia spinoff to pay down net debt, which stood at $156.2 billion at the end of 2021.
Per Warner Bros. Discovery’s Friday release announcing the closed transaction, “AT&T received $40.4 billion in cash and WarnerMedia’s retention of certain debt. Additionally, shareholders of AT&T received 0.241917 shares of WBD for each share of AT&T common stock they held at close. As a result, AT&T shareholders received 1.7 billion shares of WBD, representing 71% of WBD shares on a fully diluted basis.” AT&T had put in the disclaimer “$43 billion (subject to adjustments)” in prior announcements.
According to WBD, “Discovery’s existing shareholders own the remainder of the new company. In addition to their new shares of WBD common stock, AT&T shareholders continue to hold the same number of shares of AT&T common stock they held immediately prior to close.”
“Today’s announcement marks an exciting milestone not just for Warner Bros. Discovery but for…