{"id":205309,"date":"2025-12-22T15:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/205309\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T15:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:49:08","slug":"larry-ellison-provides-personal-guarantee-for-paramount-takeover-of-warner-bros-discovery-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/205309\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Ellison provides personal guarantee for Paramount takeover of Warner Bros Discovery | Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

The tech billionaire Larry Ellison has agreed to provide a personal guarantee of more than $40bn for Paramount Skydance\u2019s fight to gain control of Warner Bros<\/a> Discovery, amid an extraordinary corporate battle over the entertainment giant.<\/p>\n

WBD urged shareholders to reject<\/a> a $108.4bn hostile takeover bid from Paramount \u2013 which is controlled by the Ellisons \u2013 last week, having agreed to sell<\/a> its storied movie studios, HBO cable network and streaming service to Netflix in a $82.7bn deal earlier this month.<\/p>\n

WBD also accused Paramount of having \u201cconsistently misled\u201d investors by claiming its offer had a \u201cfull backstop\u201d \u2013 a safety net to ensure it has sufficient funds \u2013 from the Ellisons.<\/p>\n

In a bid to address these concerns, Paramount said on Monday morning that Larry Ellison, the co-founder of tech giant Oracle, had agreed to personally backstop $40.4bn in equity financing for the proposed deal.<\/p>\n

Paramount said it was attempting to tackle WBD\u2019s \u201camorphous need\u201d for financial flexibility, and bluntly denied the Netflix offer was superior.<\/p>\n

Unlike Netflix, which has agreed to buy only the movie studios, HBO and HBO Max from WBD, Paramount has bid for the entire company \u2013 which includes CNN, Cartoon Network and the Discovery channel. But WBD\u2019s board directors concluded its bid was \u201cinadequate\u201d, with \u201csignificant\u201d risks and costs.<\/p>\n

David Ellison, chairman and CEO of Paramount, and son of Larry, said: \u201cParamount has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to acquiring WBD. Our $30 per share, fully financed all-cash offer was on December 4th, and continues to be, the superior option to maximize value for WBD shareholders.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of our commitment to investment and growth, our acquisition will be superior for all WBD stakeholders, as a catalyst for greater content production, greater theatrical output, and more consumer choice. We expect the board of directors of WBD to take the necessary steps to secure this value-enhancing transaction and preserve and strengthen an iconic Hollywood treasure for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tech billionaire Larry Ellison has agreed to provide a personal guarantee of more than $40bn for Paramount…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-205309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205309","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=205309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}