(Reuters) – Paramount Skydance is preparing a majority cash bid for Warner Bros Discovery that is backed by the Ellison family, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the situation.
Shares of Warner Bros surged nearly 30% while Paramount was up 7% after the news.
The bid will be for the entire company, including its cable networks and movie studio, said the report, which comes just weeks after David Ellison’s company Skydance bought Paramount Global for $8.4 billion. David Ellison is the son of billionaire Larry Ellison.
Paramount declined to comment while Warner Bros did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The potential bid underscores intensifying consolidation pressures in the media sector, as traditional players race to gain scale and streaming leverage amid declining TV viewership and mounting content costs.
After Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media, David Ellison has been looking for a way to strengthen the company’s film slate and streaming ambitions while cutting costs and restructuring its struggling Paramount+ service.
The Ellison family has been instrumental in financing Skydance’s expansion. Analysts have noted that any acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery would likely require significant private financing, given the size of the deal and the limitations of Paramount Skydance’s balance sheet.
Such a merger may face antitrust scrutiny. But Larry Ellison, whose 40% stake in cloud giant Oracle has propelled him to No. 2 on the global billionaire’s list, is likely to leverage his formidable wealth as well as political heft in Washington to close this deal.
(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Nia Williams)
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