Paramount completes $110B Warner Bros. merger to form Skydance
The combined company will carry more than $80 billion in net debt and faces monitoring under a state settlement.
- On Tuesday, Paramount finalized its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, creating Skydance and beginning trading on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker SKYD. Chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz will lead the combined media giant.
- Paramount launched a hostile counterbid after Warner leadership initially pursued a deal with Netflix, eventually winning at $31 per share. The final transaction, valued at nearly $111 billion including debt, saddles the company with $80 billion in liabilities.
- To clear antitrust hurdles, the company settled with 12 state attorneys general in September, agreeing to establish a "News Editorial Independence Board" for CNN and CBS. The settlement requires at least 30 theatrical films annually over five years.
- Co-CEO Ynon Kreiz will receive $47.5 million in first-year compensation while managing day-to-day operations and business integration. Chairman and CEO David Ellison focuses on long-term strategy, creative vision, and talent relationships.
- Leadership targets $6 billion in cost savings over three years by streamlining duplicative operations, essential to managing the company's $80 billion debt and competing against rivals Amazon Prime and Netflix.
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Paramount Skydance Group has finalized the acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery (WDB) on Tuesday, October 6, for $110 billion. The new group, renamed Skydance, brings together CNN, CBS News, HBO and the Harry Potter franchise.
It moves from one of the world's largest video game publishers to one of the world's largest film studios.
The acquisition of the film and media group Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) by the competitor Paramount Skydance has been completed. Skydance, which was created, now unites the film studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, the media companies CBS News and CNN, as well as the streaming and television brands HBO and CBS television. Many employees in the companies now fear for their jobs, and there is also concern for the political indepe…
The $111 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. merger has officially been finalized, marking a historic day in the American film industry.
The new company was called Skydance.
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