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Lol. Warner should probably be a persons largest stock position. Up 50% this year. It was just spun out of AT and T which probably didn’t have a clue how to convert to a streaming player. And some bumps in the restructuring from that. It ran into problems with a lot of the equity being spun out to AT and T holders (dividend investors) and then a tough stock market and tax loss selling late last year.
The debt isn’t a problem. The average maturity is like 14 years at 4.5% rates. It’s locked in long term mostly so the article completely misses the point that there’s no interest rate risks with the firm. High rates might even helps them because it makes market values of existing debt cheaper to buy on the open market.
CNN was a fiasco. Wish they didn’t own it but a legacy asset. And HBO though gone a little wokey still is the preferred venue for artists.
If they figure out streaming no reason some day they can’t pay off a lot of debt and get a Netflix like valuation. Then that 30 billion market cap could be an 8-12 bagger.
Im not sure streaming firms ever get the valuations of the old days but the main issue is an industry with a few scaled players and more competition when it use to just be Netflix. Wasn’t a woke story but a too much competition story. And wbd suffers from having to pivot from an old high cash flow model to a new format which companies do struggle with. But the content library is as good as anyones so they have a fighting chance.
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