Warner had said in its letter the Paramount offer is “in effect” a leveraged buyout, given the amount of debt involved and Paramount’s smaller size relative to Netflix. Paramount has a market value of around $13 billion while Netflix’s is around $400 billion.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) board of directors has rejected the $108 billion hostile takeover bid from David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance, calling the offer “illusory,” and saying that Paramount had misled shareholders about its financing.