Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (NASDAQ: WBD) is a major entertainment and media company that owns high-profile entertainment brands and IPs. The consumer discretionary sector Goliath was formed through a merger of the AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) spin-off of WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. in April 2022. For the telecom giant AT&T, it was a way to offload $43 billion in debt and receive $40.4 billion in cash on the deal to refocus on its core telecommunications business.
Discovery was able to massively scale up its content and IP under the leadership of its CEO David Zaslav in order to compete with streaming giants Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) Disney+. While the merger went off without a hitch, the execution and integration of the two companies were problematic as its stock price cratered over 60% from its post-merger high near $27.50.
