Warner Bros. Discovery Formalizes Break-Up Plans

Yahoo

2 days ago

In most break-ups, the questions are, 'Who gets the dog, the air fryer, or the Sonos Sound Bar?' In this one, they're 'Who gets The Sopranos, the American League Wild Card Game and, most importantly, the roughly $38 billion of corporate debt?'
On Monday, Warner Bros. Discovery — roughly three years after its corporate marriage — announced the terms of its long-discussed separation, which will create a separate entity that will take on much of the media giant's cable TV portfolio.
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Like the rest of its pre-streaming Hollywood peers, Warner Bros. Discovery finds itself trapped between two eras. On one side, a declining cable empire that, despite existential fears, still generates pretty good cash flow. On the other side, an emergent streaming business that could be a nimble new media enterprise, were it not bogged down by years and years of debt acquired as the legacy media empire transitioned into the future.
And, much like Comcast, WBD has decided the best way forward is to split into two separate, independently operated, publicly traded companies. So what will the two new parts of the empire look like?
One is the likely-to-be-renamed Streaming & Studios company, which will be led by current WBD CEO David Zaslav. The company will consist of exactly what it sounds like: streamer HBO Max and its 122 million global subscribers, the Warner Bros. film studio, cable crown jewel HBO, and the international versions of TNT Sports, among other bits and pieces.
The other will be the also likely-to-be-renamed Global Networks company, to be led by WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels. That company will take control of WBD's various cable brands, including CNN, the US version of TNT Sports, TBS, HGTV and Cartoon Network — and, most importantly, a 'majority' of WBD's debt load.
Debt Bet: That debt won't be entirely Global Network's burden; the unit will retain as much as a 20% stake in the Streaming & Studios business, which will help with payments. For reference, in WBD's first-quarter earnings report, the company said its cable-centric 'Global Linear Brands' unit generated nearly $1.8 billion in adjusted EBITDA, compared with its 'Streaming & Studios' unit's $540 million.
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