{"id":57675,"date":"2026-01-07T08:38:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T12:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/warner-bros-discovery-rejects-paramounts-amended-bid-citing-netflix-superiority-jpmorgan-cuts-proxy-ties-mortgage-applications-rebound\/57675\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T08:38:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T12:38:24","slug":"warner-bros-discovery-rejects-paramounts-amended-bid-citing-netflix-superiority-jpmorgan-cuts-proxy-ties-mortgage-applications-rebound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/warner-bros-discovery-rejects-paramounts-amended-bid-citing-netflix-superiority-jpmorgan-cuts-proxy-ties-mortgage-applications-rebound\/57675\/","title":{"rendered":"Warner Bros. Discovery Rejects Paramount&#8217;s Amended Bid, Citing Netflix Superiority; JPMorgan Cuts Proxy Ties, Mortgage Applications Rebound"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Warner Bros. Discovery (<a href=\"\/stock\/WBD\">WBD<\/a>) has unequivocally rejected Paramount Global&#39;s (<a href=\"\/stock\/PARA\">PARA<\/a>) amended merger offer, citing &quot;insufficient value,&quot; a &quot;lack of certainty&quot; in Paramount&#39;s ability to close the deal, and deeming a potential Netflix (<a href=\"\/stock\/NFLX\">NFLX<\/a>) merger &quot;superior.&quot;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>WBD is urging its shareholders not to tender their shares to Paramount, emphasizing that Paramount&#39;s debt financing and offer terms &quot;heighten risk of failure.&quot;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>JPMorgan Chase (<a href=\"\/stock\/JPM\">JPM<\/a>) has made an industry-first move by cutting all ties with proxy advisers, according to The Wall Street Journal.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>U.S. MBA Mortgage Applications saw a significant rebound of 0.3% for the week ending January 2nd, a notable improvement from the previous week&#39;s 10.0% decline, while the 30-year mortgage rate slightly decreased to 6.25%.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Warner Bros. Discovery (<a href=\"\/stock\/WBD\">WBD<\/a>) has delivered a decisive blow to Paramount Global&#39;s (<a href=\"\/stock\/PARA\">PARA<\/a>) acquisition ambitions, publicly rejecting its amended merger offer. WBD stated that Paramount&#39;s revised proposal offers &quot;insufficient value&quot; and carries a &quot;lack of certainty&quot; regarding its ability to finalize the deal. The media conglomerate further asserted that a potential merger with Netflix (<a href=\"\/stock\/NFLX\">NFLX<\/a>) is &quot;superior&quot; to Paramount&#39;s latest terms.<\/p>\n<p>In a strong message to its shareholders, Warner Bros. Discovery (<a href=\"\/stock\/WBD\">WBD<\/a>) is actively advising against tendering shares to Paramount (<a href=\"\/stock\/PARA\">PARA<\/a>). The company highlighted that Paramount&#39;s proposed debt financing and overall offer terms &quot;heighten risk of failure,&quot; and that the offer provides &quot;insufficient value&quot; to holders. The board also considered the &quot;costs, loss of value to holders with Sky offer,&quot; further underscoring its concerns about Paramount&#39;s proposal.<\/p>\n<p>In a separate significant development within the financial sector, <strong>JPMorgan Chase (<a href=\"\/stock\/JPM\">JPM<\/a>) has become the first in the industry to sever all relationships with proxy advisers<\/strong>, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. This move by the banking giant could signal a shift in how major financial institutions approach corporate governance and shareholder voting recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>On the economic front, U.S. MBA Mortgage Applications showed a positive turnaround, increasing by <strong>0.3%<\/strong> for the week ending January 2nd. This marks a substantial improvement from the previous week&#39;s <strong>10.0% decline<\/strong>. Concurrently, the average 30-year mortgage rate experienced a slight decrease, settling at <strong>6.25%<\/strong> from its prior rate of 6.32%. This rebound in applications and a marginal dip in rates could indicate a nascent stabilization in the housing market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Takeaways Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has unequivocally rejected Paramount Global&#39;s (PARA) amended merger offer, citing &quot;insufficient value,&quot; a &quot;lack [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"rank_math_schema_Article":[],"rank_math_focus_keyword":[],"rank_math_description":[],"financial_data_references":[],"stock_symbols_mentioned":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5012],"tags":[7341,58,174,3860,3871,4932,5926,5951,6696,7104],"class_list":["post-57675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-mortgage-applications","tag-nflx","tag-jpm","tag-wbd","tag-para","tag-jpmorgan-chase","tag-netflix","tag-mergers-and-acquisitions","tag-paramount-global","tag-warner-bros-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}