The US president’s son-in-law. One of the largest alternative-asset managers. The CEO’s father who fleetingly commanded a fortune exceeding Elon Musk’s.
Paramount Skydance Corp.’s hostile takeover bid Monday for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. brought together an array of banks, billionaires and sovereign-wealth funds, all with the aim of torpedoing Netflix Inc.’s deal last week.
Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Apollo Global Management Inc. are providing the debt commitment, according to filings. RedBird Capital Partners and Larry Ellison — at one point this year the world’s richest person — will backstop the $40.7 billion of equity which will in part be provided by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Company PJSC and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.
The names are notable as much for their size as well as their proximity to President Donald Trump, who even before Paramount went public with its bid warned of potential antitrust concerns around Netflix’s planned $72 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Trump, speaking to reporters on Sunday, said he would be personally involved in the decision-making process that now includes a close family member and wealth funds in countries he’s courted to make investments in America. On Monday, he downplayed that involvement, saying neither Paramount nor Netflix were “great friends” of his.
In a letter to the Warner Bros. board, Paramount Chief Executive Officer David Ellison said the financing partners his firm had lined up — which agreed to forgo governance rights — should help assure of its ability to clinch the deal.
“We are providing you with funds certain from one of the wealthiest families in the world, a domestic counterparty, while also eliminating any cross-conditionality, which should give WBD’s board complete comfort and certainty as to our ability to close in a timely fashion,” he wrote.
The latest financing package follows months of negotiations and reworked proposals as Paramount sought to win over Warner Bros. In all, Paramount made six overtures over 12 weeks. In one case, Ellison went to the Beverly Hills home of Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav, the filing showed.
The iteration now on the table, submitted Dec. 4, includes a $54 billion so-called bridge loan split equally between Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo. For the equity portion, the entirety will be guaranteed by the Ellison family and New York investment firm RedBird in “a radical simplification” of a previous plan after the Warner Bros. board expressed concerns, according to the filing.
Larry Ellison, the 81-year-old father of David and founder of Oracle Corp. who counts Trump as a friend, briefly became the world’s richest person in September after his fortune rose by an unprecedented $89 billion in a day, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Oracle shares have since slid, and he’s worth $277 billion, according to the wealth index.
His trust “has financial resources well in excess of what would be required to meet its commitments,” according to Paramount’s filing, citing 1.16 billion shares of Oracle worth about $252 billion. As of September he had already pledged about one-quarter of those as collateral against personal debt, according to the index.
Paramount had made other salvos to Warner Bros. too: The cast of financing partners no longer includes China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. — which an earlier proposal listed as providing $1 billion — after the Warner Bros. board raised questions about the involvement of another non-US equity financing source.
That proposal from Dec. 1 also specified an $11.8 billion commitment from the Ellison family, a combined $24 billion from three Gulf-based sovereign wealth funds as well as pledges from RedBird and Affinity Partners. It wasn’t immediately clear from the filings on Monday whether those allocations had changed.
Kushner, PIF
The Paramount bid marks the second time this year that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has partnered with Kushner on an eye-catching deal. Affinity Partners was part of the consortium that agreed to buy Electronic Arts Inc. in September in a $55 billion transaction. Kushner brokered the initial connection between the video game maker and PIF, and for months acted as a central figure in the talks, Bloomberg reported at that time.
In addition to the Qatar Investment Authority, a relative newcomer is joining the melee — L’imad. The company — wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi government — has only publicly disclosed one major deal: It agreed in late October to buy a controlling stake in Modon Holding PSC, an Emirati property developer with a $15 billion market value.
The PIF, Affinity Partners, L’imad and QIA have agreed to forgo any governance rights or board seats, which Paramount said would eliminate potential scrutiny from the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Credit Ratings
Paramount’s bid at $30 a share in cash comes after Netflix agreed to buy Warner Bros. for $27.75 in cash and stock in a deal backed by $59 billion of unsecured financing from Wells Fargo & Co., BNP Paribas SA and HSBC Plc. Paramount’s bid is for the entirety of Warner Bros., while Netflix is only interested in the Hollywood studios and streaming business. Warner Bros. announced plans in June to split into two separate publicly traded companies by mid 2026.
Paramount’s debt package — secured by some of its assets — was designed with an eye on obtaining the combined company an investment-grade rating, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Paramount is currently rated at BB+ by S&P Global Ratings, one level below investment grade, and BBB- by Fitch Ratings, which is on the cusp of junk.
Paramount’s interim Chief Financial Officer Andrew Warren said on a call Monday that the company expects ratings firms to grade the debt as investment grade, based on deleveraging plans in the roughly two years following the acquisition’s close. Chief Operating Officer Andy Gordon said about $17 billion of the $54 billion debt commitment is reserved to take out and extend an existing bridge loan that Warner Bros. already has.
