{"id":146841,"date":"2025-11-18T18:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/146841\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T18:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:35:10","slug":"paramount-bid-for-wb-discovery-backed-by-saudis-qatar-and-abu-dhabi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/146841\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount Bid for WB Discovery Backed by Saudis, Qatar and Abu Dhabi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDavid Ellison<\/a>\u2019s Paramount Skydance<\/a> is said to be turning to new partners in the Middle East to help back his offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a> in its entirety.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount Skydance has formed an investment consortium with the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi to submit a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, sources told Variety. The bid is being largely backed by the Ellison family (which owns 100% voting control in Paramount Skydance) with involvement from three Arab countries: Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the sources said. In addition, Gerry Cardinale\u2019s RedBird Capital is backing the bid.<\/p>\n

\n\tEach of the funds would put up $7 billion (for a total of $21 billion); Paramount Skydance would front $50 billion for a proposed WBD acquisition for a total of $71 billion. (It\u2019s not clear if that price tag would be inclusive of debt.) The board of Warner Bros. Discovery had previously rejected a $23.50\/share offer from David Ellison.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe board of Warner Bros. Discovery has set a Nov. 20 deadline for initial bids<\/a> from interested acquirers, which also include Comcast and Netflix.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeparately Tuesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was meeting at the White House with President Trump.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Comcast co-CEO Brian Roberts traveled to Saudi Arabia in late October to attend a conference in Riyadh hosted by the PIF, Variety has confirmed. He also visited Qiddiya, where the country is building a theme park destination, to scope out the area for a possible Universal park in the area. But it\u2019s not known whether Roberts solicited investment backing from the Saudis for a Warner Bros. bid by Comcast.<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Paramount Skydance, Warner Bros. Discovery and Comcast declined to comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder the scenario in the WBD bid led by Paramount Skydance, the Saudi, Qatar and Abu Dhabi funds would hold small minority stakes in Warner Bros. Discovery. Each of the three would get \u201can IP, a movie premiere, a movie shoot,\u201d a knowledgeable source told Variety. \u201cAll they care about is reputation and soft power,\u201d the source added.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Saudis do not have \u201cany incentive\u201d to join a prospective Comcast bid for Warner Bros. (excluding WBD\u2019s linear TV networks) because their understanding is that \u201cthe Trump administration doesn\u2019t like Comcast CEO Brian Roberts at all,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump, who has regularly been upset about the coverage of Comcast-owned MSNBC (which is now called MS NOW), earlier this year called Roberts the \u201cchairman of \u2018Concast\u2019\u201d and a \u201clowlife.\u201d<\/a> Trump has equated the cable news outlet to \u201can illegal arm of the Democrat Party,\u201d and claimed that Comcast \u201cshould be forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they\u2019ve done to our Country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Ellison\u2019s Paramount Skydance is said to be turning to new partners in the Middle East to help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[48360,93,61,60,65249,282,12481],"class_list":{"0":"post-146841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-david-ellison","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-paramount-skydance","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}