Bloomberg Businessweek

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Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. plans to once again reject a takeover bid from Paramount Skydance Corp. after the rival media company amended the terms of its offer, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking.

The Warner Bros. board hasn’t made a final determination, but will meet next week, said the people, who asked to not be identified discussing internal deliberations. Among the board’s concerns, Paramount has yet to increase its offer, which Warner Bros. earlier rejected as inferior to one from Netflix Inc. Paramount, the owner of its namesake studio and MTV, has been waging a public campaign to gather support for its proposal to buy Warner Bros., which owns HBO and CNN. Paramount went public with a $30-a-share cash bid on Dec. 8, three days after Warner Bros. accepted the deal with Netflix, which is only buying Warner Bros.’ studio and streaming businesses. Paramount has since amended its offer twice, most recently by including an assurance from billionaire Larry Ellison that he would personally guarantee $40.4 billion in equity financing and other commitments.

Paramount is controlled by Larry Ellison and his son David, a movie producer now assembling a media empire. The Ellisons took control of Paramount in August and have since submitted multiple bids for Warner Bros., which would give their undersized company another of Hollywood’s original studios and more scale in streaming.

Today's show features:

• Bloomberg News Managing Editor for Media & Entertainment Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros. Discovery's plans to reject a takeover bid from Paramount Skydance
• Ross Mayfield, Investment Strategist at Baird on Tuesday’s Fed minutes release and the investment outlook for 2026 Private Wealth Management
• Ed Price , Senior Non-Resident Fellow at New York University, on geopolitical unrest in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America
• Melissa Brown, Head of Investment Decision Research at SimCorp, on the momentum trade and key historical market indicators to watch with earnings season on the horizon

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Novi is an AI shopping optimization platform for consumer packaged goods (CPG). It seeks to help retailers and brands ensure their products can be accurately found, trusted, and recommended by AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude by verifying and structuring SKU-level product data. Retailers including Macy’s, Sephora, Target, and Ulta, along with thousands of CPG brands, rely on Novi to optimize their product data for AI-driven discovery.

Kimberly Shenk, the company's CEO, discusses the impact of artificial intelligence on the retail sector during the holiday season as consumers increasingly use AI agents to perform deep-discount hunting, real-time product comparisons, and personalized gift curation. Kimberly speaks with Carol Massar and Vonnie Quinn on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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President Donald Trump’s push to end the war in Ukraine faced new complications on Monday when Vladimir Putin said he would revise his country’s negotiating position after the Russian leader claimed Ukrainian drones targeted his residence.

Putin told Trump of his decision in a call Monday, according to the Kremlin, even as Kyiv cast the Russian allegations as a fabrication aimed at derailing the peace process.
Trump addressed the dispute while speaking to reporters in Florida, saying that Putin had told him about the purported attack during their discussion. The US president, seeming to side with Putin, said he was “very angry.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dismissed the Russian claims as a “new lie” and warned that Moscow could be using it as an excuse to prepare an attack on government buildings in Kyiv.

Putin said Moscow intends to work closely with the US on peace efforts but will reconsider a number of previously reached agreements, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Russian newswires. Ushakov added that Putin assured Trump that Moscow will look to continue working with US partners to achieve peace and that the two leaders agreed to maintain their dialogue.

Today's show features:

• Dr. Angela Stent, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,
• Henrietta Treyz, Co-Founder and Director of Economic Policy at Veda Partners, on how President Donald Trump's foreign policy goals could impact Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections
• Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Commodity Strategist Mike McGlone on gold and silver prices slumping as traders booked profit following their recent year-end rally
• Bloomberg News Wealth Reporter Dylan Sloan on the struggles of some IPO insiders who have seen their stakes fall in value in 2025 since their respective public-trading debuts

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

You can also watch Bloomberg Businessweek on YouTube - just search for Bloomberg Global News.
Like us at Bloomberg Radio on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @carolmassar @timsteno and @BW

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US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy last week unveiled the country's first ever "Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Strategy," setting up a roadmap to help accelerate American aviation innovation and transform our skies. AAM is a rapidly-emerging aerospace sector focused on safely and efficiently integrating highly automated aircraft into US airspace. It involves a range of innovations — particularly new aircraft types that typically operate below 5,000 feet — to transport people and packages more efficiently than ever before.
Another key component of this initiative is infrastructure, and that's where Lisa Wright comes in. The Founder and CEO of Landings is focused on her firm's plan to develop a network of rural vertiports that expand access to advanced air mobility across the US. She explains how her firm's potential has quickly grown as the conversation moves from one-off vertiport projects to multi-site networks. She believes that stakeholders now see the strategic advantage of building coordinated, regional vertiport systems that can support cargo, emergency services, and eventually passenger movement — not just isolated landing pads. Lisa speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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Wall Street traders parsing a batch of economic reports in a session marked by a slowdown in transactions drove stocks to all-time highs. Short-dated bonds underperformed. The dollar fell.
In a narrow tech-led advance, the S&P 500 rose for a fourth straight day. Volume was below the average of the past three months ahead of the Christmas holiday. The index rebounded even after data did little to encourage bets the Federal Reserve will cut rates in the near term.
Treasury two-year yields - more sensitive to imminent Fed moves - remained above 3.5%. That was after data showed the economy expanded at the fastest pace in two years. A drop in consumer confidence spurred only a mild bounce in bonds from session lows. The S&P 500 topped 6,900. Its equal-weighted version - which gives Dollar Tree Inc. as much clout as Apple Inc. - edged lower. A gauge of big techs climbed about 1% while smaller firms underperformed.
Today's show features:

• Bloomberg Equities Reporter Alexandra Semenova on her story explaining why some investors are fearful of overly optimistic expectations from equity analysts
• David Schassler, Head of Multi-Asset Solutions at VanEck Funds, on investing trends to watch as we close out the year
• Travis McCready, Head of Industries, Leasing Advisory, at JLL, on the structural forces poised to shape real estate decisions and investment demand for the life sciences sector in 2026
• Bloomberg News Chief Correspondent for Global Aviation Siddharth Philip on expectations for record holiday air travel expectations among US carriers

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Palmetto is a consumer home energy marketplace aimed at accelerating the transition to a clean energy future. Through a data-driven platform, Palmetto empowers homeowners to understand their energy use, discover personalized savings opportunities, and seamlessly purchase, finance, and manage home electrification and clean energy products and services.
Neil Chatterjee, Palmetto’s Chief Government Affairs Officer, brings more than two decades of experience shaping US energy policy experience. A longtime bipartisan negotiator and former Commissioner and Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Neil plays a key role in guiding Palmetto’s policy strategy at a pivotal moment in the clean energy transition. He discusses the most pressing issues across the energy space, particularly when it comes to affordability for consumers, with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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Larry Ellison is throwing his personal fortune behind Paramount Skydance Corp.’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., aiming to give his son’s company an advantage in a fiercely contested takeover battle with Netflix Inc.
Both suitors moved on Monday to strengthen the financial backing for their offers, though they stopped short of increasing their bids. Netflix refinanced a portion of its planned $59 billion of debt as a way to ensure a lasting investment-grade rating — a key advantage it holds over the lower-rated Paramount.
But it’s the personal guarantee of Ellison, the world’s fifth-richest person with a $246 billion fortune, that could force a rethink by Warner Bros. The board previously urged shareholders to reject Paramount’s offer in part because the billionaire father of its Chief Executive Officer David Ellison had backed the $40.4 billion of equity financing with a revocable trust that could, as the name implies, be withdrawn or amended at any time.
Paramount has been aggressively pursuing Warner Bros. for months and Ellison was taken by surprise when the board agreed to a deal with Netflix for $82.7 billion for the streaming and studio assets. The strength of the financing for each bid has emerged as a decisive issue in the takeover battle, which unleashed two massive debt-fueled offers that rank among the largest in the past decade. Paramount took its offer of $30 a share, or $108.4 billion including debt, for the entire company directly to shareholders.
Today's show features:

• Bloomberg News Media Editor Molly Schuetz and Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Credit Analyst Stephen Flynn on the latest developments in the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war
• Que Nguyen, Chief Investment Officer, Equity Strategies with Research Affiliates on whether small- and mid-cap stocks are contributing to the bull market and how much more growth we can expect from the AI trade
• Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Commodity Strategist Mike McGlone on trading trends in gold and crypto
• Darrick Hamilton, University Professor, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at the New School, on whether Trump accounts can help close the racial wealth gap in America

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Brothers Bob and Russ Shay grew up with a relentless passion for skiing, and were frustrated with ill-fitting and mass-produced ski boots designed to fit everyone, without fitting anyone. Their love for the sport led them on a years-long search for any edge in training, technique, and equipment. Using tools in their family's garage, they ground, sawed, cut, padded, and pounded away at ski boots. Their vision was to combine comfort and performance to build a ski boot that would fit like it was made for you instead of a generic foot. The result was Surefoot, the world's largest custom ski boot company

Bob Shay, who is now serving as the CEO of Surefoot, details the firm's growth into a worldwide winter sports brand, and discusses whether he's ever considered selling the company. Bob speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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Featuring some of our favorite conversations of the week from our daily radio show "Bloomberg Businessweek Daily."
Hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec

Hear the show live at 2PM ET on WBBR 1130 AM New York, Bloomberg 92.9 FM Boston, WDCH 99.1 FM in Washington D.C. Metro, Sirius/XM channel 121, on the Bloomberg Business App, Radio.com, the iHeartRadio app and at Bloomberg.com/audio.

You can also watch Bloomberg Businessweek on YouTube - just search for Bloomberg Global News.
Like us at Bloomberg Radio on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @carolmassar @timsteno and @BW

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.