Oprah Winfrey has taken a stake of $35 million-plus in Discovery Inc. as part of a deal that boosts the factual content giant's holding in OWN, a joint venture with Winfrey's Harpo, sources tellDiscovery and Harpo's original deal to form OWN in 2008 included options for Harpo to sell its stake to the content company, and Discovery has been increasing its OWN stake over time.
Winfrey continues to serve as CEO and chief creative officer of OWN, though she now owns only a 5 percent stake in it. A rep for Harpo and OWN declined to comment. At Monday's Discovery stock closing price of $27.37, the 1.34 million shares were worth around $36.7 million.