U.S. president Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will be involved in deciding if the Netflix merger deal with Warner Bros and its subsidiaries should go through. He cited concerns that the combined entity and its market share would be too big, raising the issue of a monopoly.
When asked by a reporter at the Kennedy Centre if Netflix should be allowed to buy Warner Bros, Trump said
“Well, that’s a question…they have a very big market share, and when they have Warner Brothers, that share goes up a lot, so I don’t know, that’s gonna (going) to be for some ecconomists to tell….and I’ll be involved in that decision too,”
On Friday both companies agreed to an acquisition in which Netflix would take control of Warner Bros and its stake in TV and streaming business HBO and HBO max.
The underlying deal would see Warner Brothers compensated in a part-equity, part cash deal at a price point of $23.25 in cash and $4.50 worth of Netflix stock in exchange for each share of Warner Bros, which has been valued at $27.75 per share. At the time of writing, Warner Bros shares were trading at $26.08.
Online streaming platform Netflix has a successful track record of close to 20 years of operating in the streaming service space. If the deal goes through, Netflix will take on a larger catalogue of movies and TV shows, including Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, The Wizard of Oz, and others.