David Ellison emerged with his prized Hollywood juggernaut on Tuesday as the merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery officially closed.<\/p>\n
The $111-billion transaction<\/a> culminated a year-long battle by the 43-year-old tech scion to add Warner Bros. Discovery to his family\u2019s growing portfolio. Ellison\u2019s small Paramount fended off the deep-pocketed streaming giant Netflix, hundreds of Hollywood merger opponents<\/a> and, ultimately, a group of 12 state attorneys general<\/a>, led by California\u2019s Rob Bonta<\/a>, to stitch up the coveted acquisition.<\/p>\n The Ellison family now controls one of the largest traditional media companies ever formed, with HBO, CNN, CBS, Comedy Central, TBS, Food Network, two traditional Hollywood studios and two major streaming services. His father Larry Ellison\u2019s Oracle Corp. owns a substantial stake in the popular social media platform TikTok. <\/p>\n \u201cToday is a historic day, not just for Skydance<\/a> but for our entire industry,\u201d Ellison, the company\u2019s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. \u201cOur ambition was to bring these two storied studios together and create a stronger competitor, with the talent, resources, and reach to tell great stories in every genre, on every platform, for audiences everywhere. Now that ambition is a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Shares of the new company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SKYD, a switch from last week when the company went by PSKY for Paramount Skydance and traded on the Nasdaq. Ellison has called the merged company<\/a> Skydance, the name he selected two decades ago when he began building his Hollywood studio.<\/p>\n Shares opened around $9.70, which is about half of Paramount\u2019s 52-week high. <\/p>\n The new company emerged heavily in debt \u2014 more than $80 billion \u2014 to finance the buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery investors at $31.17 a share. Wall Street has expressed concerns about the company\u2019s indebtedness. <\/p>\n Skydance has said it will find $6 billion in cost cuts over three years \u2014 a prospect that has worried weary Warner Bros. workers who have seen their company change hands three times in eight years.<\/p>\n Skydance said Tuesday that the \u201csynergy savings\u201d would primarily come from merging technology, integration and procurement as well as marketing costs and \u201creal estate rationalization.\u201d <\/p>\n As part of last month\u2019s settlement with Bonta, Ellison made a five-year commitment to hold onto both the Warner Bros. and Paramount lots. The company leases office space, including in Hollywood and Culver City, which could eventually be phased out. <\/p>\n The company expects $70 billion a year in revenue, which still trails the Walt Disney Co., which last year generated $94.4 billion in sales.<\/p>\n The Ellison family will be the controlling shareholders with longtime Skydance investor RedBird Capital Partners joining with voting shares. <\/p>\n Nearly half of the new company will be owned by foreign investors after Skydance sought a waiver from the Federal Communications Commission, controlled an appointee of President Trump, <\/a>who has long favored the Ellison family\u2019s flex to own two major news outlets \u2014 CBS News and CNN. <\/p>\n The royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi contributed $24 billion in equity to help Ellison close the deal. <\/p>\n Skydance said the transaction included $47 billion of new equity investment led by the Larry Ellison family, RedBird, the sovereign wealth fund and LionTree. Those holdings were priced at $12 a share.<\/p>\n Debt financing for the transaction was led by Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo.<\/p>\n Ellison named his executive team on Monday, including CNN Chairman Mark Thompson<\/a>, HBO Chairman Casey Bloys<\/a>, Discovery streaming executive J.B. Perrette and DC Comics managers James Gunn and Peter Safran \u2014 all former senior executives at Warner Bros. Discovery who made the switch to Skydance.<\/p>\n