Today wasn’t a great day for Warner Bros Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) investors, as the media giant saw its board shrink and some of its top brass shift while it offered some expansion plans. None of this sat well with investors, who took Warner stock down almost 4% in the closing minutes of Tuesday’s trading.
Perhaps the biggest development was that the board of directors lost two members outright. Steven Newhouse and Steven Miron both resigned following word of Warner facing an antitrust investigation. At least this one didn’t come out of Lina Khan’s Securities and Exchange Commission, but rather, the Justice Department.
While neither Steven admitted to any wrongdoing, they left all the same, after being put on the board during the Discovery and Warner Bros merger of 2022. The Justice Department, meanwhile, is looking into whether there was a violation of Section 8 of the Clayton Antitrust Act, which would keep a company’s board of directors from serving on the board of a competitor.
Further Shake-Ups Followed
But that wasn’t all that Warner shuffled. First, it took the former head of consumer products retailing and licensing for the INSEAK region—which includes India and Southeast Asia, like Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong—Vikram Sharma, and made him group vice president of consumer products for the APAC—Asia-Pacific—region.
Warner’s streaming service Max, meanwhile, is poised to send a quantity of shows to Spain‘s Movistar+ operation, including House of the Dragon and Dune. Finally, a new series will hit Cartoonito—which serves portions of Europe, the United States, and a large swath of Asia—soon; Once Upon a Time…The Objects will offer a look at 78 items and their place in history.
Is WBD Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on WBD stock based on nine Buys, seven Holds and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 43.05% loss in its share price over the past year, the average WBD price target of $13.61 per share implies 60.31% upside potential.
