It was perhaps inevitable that WBD would be in play, to use the old Wall Street argot, once David Zaslav publicly announced that he was splitting his company last June—a signal that the board of directors might have no choice but to entertain offers for the whole company or its two parts. Zaz, after all, is a deal maven from way back in his GE days. He built Discovery Communications through M&A deals, too. In his announcement on Tuesday morning, he made de jure what had already been de facto: WBD said it had hired Allen & Co., Evercore, and JPMorgan Chase, and “initiated a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value, in light of unsolicited interest the Company has received from multiple parties for both the entire company and Warner Bros.”