WarnerMedia and Discovery are now Warner Bros. Discovery after completing their merger

Discovery has now completed its acquisition of WarnerMedia, which was earlier under AT&T, on Friday, April 8, 2022. With the acquisition, a new company has been introduced, Warner Bros. Discovery, which also has a new symbol. The new company will begin trading on Nasdaq Monday, under "WBD," as per Variety.

As per a report by the leading daily, Warner Bros. Discovery announced details about the deal on Friday, April 8. They revealed AT&T received $40.4 billion in cast and WanerMedia's reception of certain debt. Moreover, the shareholders of AT&T received 0.241917 shares of the new company Warner Bros. Discovery for each share of AT&T common stock. 

The statement read, "AT&T received $40.4 billion in cash and WarnerMedia's retention of certain debt. Additionally, shareholders of AT&T received 0.241917 shares of WBD for each share of AT&T common stock they held at close. As a result, AT&T shareholders received 1.7 billion shares of WBD, representing 71% of WBD shares on a fully diluted basis."

Moreover, Discover's existing shareholders own the remainder of the new company. In addition to their new shares of the common stock of WBD, AT&T shareholders continue to hold the same number of shares of AT&T common stock as they held before the deal was finalised.

Warner Bros. Discovery's David Zaslav on the new company

David Zaslav, the President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery shared a statement via the official website and social media handles of the new company. Zaslav said, "Today's announcement marks an exciting milestone not just for Warner Bros. Discovery but for our shareholders, our distributors, our advertisers, our creative partners and most importantly, consumers globally." With our collected assets and diversified business model, Warner Bros. Discovery offers the most differentiated and complete portfolio of content across film, television and streaming," he added.

Discovery is the parent company of several sub-companies, which include Discovery Plus, Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, TLC, Travel Channel, Investigation Discovery, Turbo/Velocity, Science Channel, Animal Planet and Oprah Winfrey Network. On the other hand, WarnerMedia owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, DC Films, Warner Bros., TBS, TNT, TruTV, Cartoon Network, Turner Sports, and Rooster Teeth. It is also a part-owner of the CW Network along with Paramount.

Image: Instagram/@wbd