Paramount this morning launched a hostile takeover effort for Warner Brothers Discovery, valuing the media giant at around $108 billion.

• Its financing partners include Jared Kushner's private equity firm and several Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

Why it matters: Netflix won the battle, agreeing to buy WBD's studio and streaming assets for $83 billion, but the war remains in doubt.

Behind the scenes: A source close to Paramount says the company didn't have visibility into Netflix's offer until last Friday morning, and was less than impressed.

• David Ellison & co. legitimately believed they had the better bid, in terms of both price and certainty of close.
• Paramount also felt that its offer will look even better when the Comcast's cable spinoff begins trading next week, giving investors a comp to the WBD stub that Netflix would leave behind.

Driving the news: Talk of hostility was in the air just hours after the Netflix deal got announced, and only got louder over the weekend as Paramount allies worked the phones.

• Politicians from both parties raised antitrust concerns, and President Trump said that there "could be a problem" with the Netflix deal.

Zoom in: Paramount is offering $30 per share in cash for all of WBD.

• The bid would include $40.7 billion of equity capital backstopped by the Ellison family and existing Paramount backer RedBird Capital Partners.
• Other financing partners include sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar. Plus, Kushner's Affinity Capital Partners. Tencent was pasrt of Paramount's original bid but not its current one.
• There's also committed debt from Bank of America, Citi, and Apollo.

Zoom out: The Gulf involvement could raise some PR headaches around CNN, although shouldn't cause CFIUS concerns.

The bottom line: This saga is going to make for a great documentary someday, but maybe not on Netflix.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) agreed to buy Confluent (Nasdaq: CFLT), a Mountain View, California-based data center infrastructure firm, for $11 billion in cash.

Why it's the BFD: This reflects Arvind Krishna's belief that IBM's path to maintaining relevancy in the AI age is via open-source acquisitions.

• He put together the Red Hat deal shortly before becoming CEO in 2020, and in the past year has acquired both Hashi and Confluent.
• IBM's stock price has more than doubled during that time.

By the numbers: IBM will pay $31 per Confluent share, representing a 34% premium over Friday's closing price.

• Confluent went public in June 2021 and saw its shares peak later that year at $93.60.

The bottom line: "IBM has been competing with Google, Microsoft and a number of startups to build computers that exceed the abilities of the best conventional ones. It is working on larger clusters of quantum chips that it expects will enable large-scale computing in the next five years." — Lauren Thomas, WSJ

🚑 Excelsior Sciences, an AI chemistry startup, raised $70m in Series A funding. from Deerfield Management, Khosla Ventures, Sofinnova Partners, Cornucopian Capital, Eli Lilly, Illinois Ventures, and MIT. It also secured a $25m grant from the New York's Empire State Development. axios.link/44bS71z

• Quilt, a Redwood City, Calif., home heat pump maker, raised a $20m in Series B funding, per Axios Pro. Galvanize and Energy Impact Partners led, joined by Gradient Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Incite Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. axios.link/44cGBTB

• Scowtt, a Seattle-based ad optimization platform, raised $12m in Series A funding, per Axios Pro. Inspired Capital led, joined by LiveRamp Ventures and Angeles Investors. axios.link/4rXDbOO

• Corma, a French software usage management SaaS, raised €3.5m in seed funding. XTX Ventures led, joined by Tuesday Capital, Kima Ventures, 50 Partners, and Olympe Capital. axios.link/3YkwecJ

• Advent International no longer is in talks to acquire Whirlpool's (NYSE: WHR) India unit, per Reuters. axios.link/4iFL3A2

🌍 Altor agreed to buy Evac, a Finnish provider of water and waste treatment products, from Bridgepoint for more than €600m, per Bloomberg. axios.link/44izadA

🚑 Aptyx, a TruArc Partners and PennantPark portfolio company, acquired Taunton, Mass.-based precision extruder Argos Corp. axios.link/48qWZCt

• Berkshire Partners acquired United Flow Technologies, a provider of solutions for the municipal and industrial water and wastewater treatment markets, from H.I.G. Capital (which retains a minority stake). axios.link/48EDNjv

• Eagle Merchant Partners invested in Atlantic Pipe Services, a provider of services for stormwater and wastewater infrastructure in Florida. axios.link/3XCi1b1

• IK Partners agreed to acquire French financial advisory Rhétorès Group. axios.link/3XIufPl

• Keystone Capital Management invested in Chartwell Financial Advisory, a Minneapolis-based corporate advisory. chartwellfa.com

• PAI Partners agreed to acquire Innovad Group, a Belgian maker of animal feed additives, from IK Partners. axios.link/3KP4XMx

• ProAmpac of Cincinnati agreed to buy Chicago-based packaging group TC Transcontinental Packaging, for US$1.51b from Canada's TC Transcontinental. ProAmpac backers include Pritzker Private Capital, Constitution Capital Partners, A&M Capital and GIC. axios.link/4oJeq65

• SharpenCX, an Indianapolis-based portfolio company of Teleos, acquired Ytel, a Lake Forest, Calif.-based provider of carrier-grade voice and messaging infrastructure. axios.link/48JPYLW

• SoftBank is in talks to buy digital infrastructure firm DigitalBridge (NYSE: DRBG), per Reuters. axios.link/3XDIvZB

• StoneTree Investment Partners agreed to buy Reel Power, an Oklahoma City-based heavy equipment manufacturer, from Dubin Clark. axios.link/4pPcJVr

⚡ TotalEnergies (Paris: TTE) agreed to merge its British North Sea upstream assets with a partnership with Repsol (Madrid: REP) and PE firm HitecVision (which will hold around a 28% stake). axios.link/4iJA4FH

🚑 WindRose Health Investors invested in Stellus Rx, a Plano, Texas-based pharmacy care management platform. axios.link/48AO1RS

Three companies expect to price IPOs this week on U.S. exchanges: Wealthfront, Lumexa Imaging, and Cardinal Infrastructure.

• Art Technology Acquisition, a SPAC led by Daniel Cohen, filed for a $220m IPO. axios.link/4akWECL

• Blue Water Acquisition IV, a SPAC led by Joseph Hernandez (Blue Water Venture Partners), filed for a $125m IPO. axios.link/4oGUdOf

• Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) agreed to buy a majority stake in alcoholic beverage maker BeatBox for $490m (an earlier WSJ report put the price at around $700m). Austin, Texas-based BeatBox has raised around $23m in VC funding from Concentric Equity Partners, Morrison Seger, and ICBM Venture Capital. axios.link/3Yai9yC

• Barclays (LSE: BARC) is exploring a bid for U.K. wealth manager Evelyn Partners, which is being sold by Permira and Warburg Pincus for around £2.5b, per Reuters. axios.link/44hFFgK

🚑 L'Oreal (Paris: OR) doubled its stake in Swiss skincare company Galderma (Swiss: GALD) to 20%, buying shares from EQT. axios.link/48EyFfb

🚑 Natera (Nasdaq: NTRA) agreed to acquire Foresight Diagnostics, a Boulder, Colo.-based developer of cancer detection tests, for $275m upfront and $175m in possible earnouts. Foresight had raised around $86m from Foresite Capital, Civilization Ventures, Bluebird Ventures, Pear Ventures, Agent Capital, Stanford University, and University of Colorado Healthcare Innovation Fund. axios.link/3MfZbEh

• Robinhood (Nasdaq: HOOD) agreed to acquire both Indonesian brokerage Buana Capital Sekuritas and digital asset trader Pedagang Aset Kripto. axios.link/3XH8Xl5

• Worthington Steel (NYSE: WS) is weighing a takeover bid for listed German metals company Kloeckner. axios.link/49Xz12N

• Lulu Cheng Meservey, a well-known public relations advisor to tech startups, raised $40m for a VC fund, per Axios. axios.link/48XKM8n

• North Sky Partners is raising up to $250m for its seventh impact secondaries fund, per an SEC filing.

• Alexander Grau joined Strategic Value Partners as a managing director. He previously was with Hudson Advisors. axios.link/48yFznz

• David Martus joined Upwelling Capital as head of biz dev. He previously led IR at GSSG Solar and spent time with Kerogan Capital, Forbes Private Capital Group, and Colorado PERA. axios.link/48WRJqf

Private equity pioneer Tom Hicks died on Saturday at the age of 79.

• Hicks began backing leveraged buyouts in 1984, making his first big splash when Hicks & Haas sponsored the 1986 merger of Dr Pepper and 7Up.
• He'd lead the Dallas-based firm — later renamed Hicks Muse Tate & Furst — for three decades, before later focusing his time on community development and pro sports team ownership (Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars and Liverpool FC).
• Hicks also spent five years on the University of Texas Board of Regents, helping to establish UTIMCO.

Hicks is survived by wife Cinda, six children, and 14 grandchildren.