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Paramount counters Netflix with hostile bid for Warner Bros WASHINGTON: Paramount on

Netflix’s bid, which values Warner Bros. studios at nearly US$83 billion, “inferior and uncertain”. “WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer,” Ellison said. Netflix declined a request for comment from AFP. “The Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition is far from over,“ said Emarketer analyst Ross Benes. “Netflix is in the driver’s seat but there will be twists and turns before the finish line... The battle could become prolonged.” – AFP Vietnam’s Vingroup to develop US$3b ecosystem in India’s Telangana state HANOI: Vietnam’s largest conglomerate Vingroup yesterday signed a memo randum of understanding with Telan gana’s state government for a proposed US$3 billion (RM12.3 billion)( investment to establish a multi-sector ecosystem in the southern Indian state. The projects would cover smart urban development, electric mobility, health care, education, tourism and renewable energy across about 2,500 hectares (6,177 acres), the company said in a statement. Telangana’s government will facilitate the allocation of land, the fast-tracking of approvals and coordinate planning, according to the statement. “We are committed to ... positioning Telangana as the gateway for Vietnamese and South-East Asian investment into India’s fastest-growing economy,” said Sanjay Kumar, Special Chief Secretary to the Government of Telangana. The US$3 billion plan marks Vingroup’s biggest potential investment outside Vietnam, surpassing a US$2 billion VinFast factory under construction in North Carolina, United States. The move extends Vingroup’s presence in India, where its electric vehicle arm, VinFast, has a manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. Last week, VinFast announced a US$500 million expansion of the Tamil Nadu plant as it ramps up plans to tap India’s fast-growing EV market. The statement did not provide details on the investment disbursement time line. For the first nine months of 2025, Vingroup reported a net profit of 7.565 trillion dong (US$287.42 million), nearly double its earnings from the same period in 2024. However, the expansion has contributed to a rise in debt, which totalled US$12.35 billion as of September 2025, with about half tied to bank loans and syndicated credit facilities. VinFast, despite its ongoing global expansion, continues to report widening losses. In addition to VinFast’s existing operations, including its affiliate GSM’s deployment of large-scale electric taxi fleets, the projects in Telangana will feature a 1,080-hectare smart city, a 350 hectare theme park, and a 500 MW solar farm to power sustainable initiatives. “We see tremendous potential in Telangana,” Pham Sanh Chau, CEO of Vingroup Asia and VinFast Asia, said in the statement, emphasising the partnership’s focus on sustainable development. – Reuters

Warner Bros since a bidding war began in September. Unlike Netflix’s offer, Paramount’s latest bid includes the buyout of cable channels such as CNN, TNT, TBS and Discovery -- which would be added to its group of TV assets like CBS, MTV and Comedy Central. The offer values the entertainment giant at US$108.4 billion (RM446.3 billion) and represents a 139% premium over the Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) September stock price of US$12.54, when the bidding war began. Paramount in a statement called

Netflix’s deal “could be a problem” as it would be left with a huge market share of the film and TV industry. In a break from usual practice, Trump said he would be “involved” in the government’s decision to approve the deal over fair competition concerns, instead of leaving the question solely in the hands of the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission, as is usually the case. “We’re really here to finish what we started,” David Ellison, who is also chairman of Paramount, told CNBC as his company made a sixth offer for

voices in Hollywood worried about the future of their industry. David Ellison’s father Larry, one of the world’s richest people, has put up the cash to pay for the buyout, with sovereign wealth companies from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi also investors. Another investor is Affinity Partners, the private equity firm founded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is close to the president and acted on his behalf in recent diplomatic missions on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Trump weighed in on Sunday, saying

Monday launched an all-cash tender offer to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, the Hollywood giant that also owns CNN, in a challenge to Netflix’s own highly contested deal. The hostile offer sets up a bidding war between Paramount – whose CEO is David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, an ally of Donald Trump – and streaming behemoth Netflix. Netflix shocked the industry last week by announcing it had sealed an agreement to buy the Warner Bros studio, drawing bitter reactions from

HK tells banks to ensure IPO applications up to standard

HONG KONG: Investment banks preparing Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) applications have been asked to make sure their submissions are up to standard, the city’s securities regulator and the stock exchange operator said. Hong Kong is one of the world’s major markets for IPOs and most of the city’s listing applicants are Chinese companies looking to raise capital offshore. As a result, the scrutiny of listings is key to retaining its attractiveness to investors. Regulators believe that a surge in listings in the city had led to some banks working on multiple IPOs simultaneously, resulting in unsatisfactory work on some applications, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. The warning was issued last Friday, added the sources, who were not authorised to speak to media and declined to be identified. Asked to comment on the information from the sources, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd (HKEX) said it was “committed to ensuring the timely and robust review of new listing applications”. The exchange continues to engage with issuers, sponsors and professional advisers to “ensure the submission of comprehensive and high-quality listing materials”, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission in a separate statement said that both it and HKEX welcome “quality companies” scrutiny seeks to maintain attractiveness of market o Regulators warn sponsors on unsatisfactory submissions,

View of Exchange Square, in Hong Kong. The Special Administrative Region dominated Asian equity capital market deals with US$75 billion raised so far this year, LSEG data showed. – REUTERSPIC

sharpened their focus on cases of alleged market manipulation and corporate fraud that risk tarnishing the former British colony’s reputation as a global financial centre. The tightening measures in recent years have included penalties imposed on some sponsors, as investment banks that underwrite listings in Hong Kong are called, for their alleged lack of stringent due diligence on some IPO applications. In the latest move, authorities warned the IPO sponsors that if their listing applications did not satisfy regulatory requirements, they would be subjected to punitive measures, including fines, the sources said. – Reuters

seeking listing in Hong Kong and support a vibrant capital markets ecosystem. Hong Kong dominated Asian equity capital market deals with US$75 billion (RM308.8 billion) raised so far this year, more than triple what was raised last year and the highest since 2021, according to LSEG data. More than 300 companies have filed to list in Hong Kong, most of them from mainland China. With investment banks vying to grab a larger share of the IPOs in Hong Kong, local market authorities are concerned that some of the bookrunners are taking on work that exceeds their capacity, one of the sources added. In recent years, Hong Kong regulators have

S Korea police raid e-commerce giant Coupang over data leak SEOUL: South Korean police yesterday raided the Seoul headquarters of e-commerce giant Coupang over a recent data leak believed to have affected almost two-thirds of the country’s population. Payment details and login credentials were not affected, it said. Coupang had told authorities the personal information of 33.7 million customers had been leaked – almost two-thirds of the population of the country. investigate” based on the evidence obtained. Last week, President Lee Jae Myung called for swift action to penalise those responsible for the debacle.

Seoul has said the leak took place through Coupang’s overseas servers from June 24 to Nov 8. The company only became aware of it last month, according to police and local media, when it issued a complaint against the alleged culprit – a former employee who is a Chinese national. The firm is now facing a class action lawsuit in the United States, where its global headquarters is based, over the leak, Yonhap news agency reported. – AFP

Coupang is South Korea’s most popular online shopping platform, serving millions of customers with lightning-fast deliveries of products from groceries to gadgets. But the company suffered a massive data leak this year and was forced to alert customers that their names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses and some order histories had been exposed.

Yesterday, police in Seoul conducted a “search and seizure” operation at Coupang’s South Korean headquarters, describing it as a “necessary measure to accurately understand the incident”. Seventeen officers from the force’s cyber investigation unit were deployed, with law enforcement vowing to “comprehensively