Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorNow in the home stretch of unloading WarnerMedia, AT&T chief John Stankey appears to be primarily interested in not destroying any more value for shareholders than the telco giant already has with its ill-fated M&A strategy.This week, AT&T announced that the WarnerMedia divestiture will be structured as a spinoff ahead of its combo with Discovery.
That will give telco shareholders pro-rata shares in the newly created Warner Bros. Discovery, as the new company is to be called.Click here to sign up for Variety’s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial news, and more.Stankey and the board had been mulling a less conventional exit: a split-off of WarnerMedia, which would have forced AT&T shareholders to choose whether to keep their shares in AT&T or exchange them for stock in Warner Bros.
Discovery. The goal with a split would have been to reduce AT&T’s outstanding share count, tantamount to a stock buyback by the telco.
Analysts say a split-off would have effectively been an immediate referendum on Hollywood’s streaming ambitions — one that AT&T now avoids by doing a simpler spinoff of WarnerMedia.
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