{"id":164733,"date":"2025-12-02T18:55:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/164733\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T18:55:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:55:06","slug":"paramount-skydances-latest-bid-for-wbd-backed-by-arab-wealth-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/164733\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount Skydance’s Latest Bid for WBD Backed by Arab Wealth Funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe second round of offers for all or part of Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a> are in from Paramount Skydance<\/a>, Netflix<\/a> and Comcast<\/a>. And the new, higher offer for all of WBD from David Ellison\u2019s Paramount is backed in part by the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, sources tell Variety.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dollar amounts of the higher bids submitted Dec. 1 from Paramount Skydance (which wants to buy all of Warner Bros. Discovery) or from Netflix and Comcast (which want only the Warner Bros. studios and streaming business, and not WBD\u2019s linear TV assets) could not be learned. Paramount\u2019s latest all-cash offer is still mostly backed by the Ellison family (that is, Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison) and includes financing from RedBird Capital, Apollo Global Management and others. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition, the latest Paramount Skydance offer for all of WBD includes funding from Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Variety confirmed. Bloomberg News previously reported<\/a> that Paramount\u2019s latest offer included the involvement of unspecified \u201cMiddle East funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSources familiar with the situation said the level of involvement of the three Arab wealth funds with Paramount\u2019s latest offer does not meet the threshold to require approval by CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is the U.S. government\u2019s interagency body that reviews foreign investments in U.S. businesses potential national security risks.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Netflix\u2019s higher second-round bid for Warner Bros., comprising HBO Max and the WB studios operations, was mostly cash, according to reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. Comcast also entered a new bid for Warner Bros., Variety confirmed. Netflix has told WBD that if its bid is successful, the streamer would honor Warner Bros.\u2019s deals to distribute films in theaters<\/a> \u2014 despite Netflix\u2019s historical opposition to theatrical releases \u2014 and to continue producing TV and movies for non-Netflix partners.<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Paramount Skydance, Netflix and Comcast declined to comment. A Warner Bros. Discovery rep did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety last month reported that Paramount Skydance was assembling a bid for WBD with the backing of the three Middle Eastern wealth funds<\/a>. But the Paramount nonbinding bid of $24\/share for all of Warner Bros. Discovery that Paramount Skydance submitted Nov. 20<\/a> did not involve the three Arab wealth funds, sources clarified.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid Ellison had been scheduled to appear at the New York Times\u2019 DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Dec. 3. However, with the bidding process for Warner Bros. Discovery in play, Ellison is now not expected to appear, although that could change, according to a source familiar with the situation.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s next? The Warner Bros. Discovery board committee formally vetting the M&A offers will now decide whether to go forward with one of the bidders and engage in a period of exclusive negotiations with that party, or whether to solicit additional proposals. WBD has been aiming to complete the process by the end of 2025. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe M&A review kicked off in earnest last month, when Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it had received in-bound acquisition interest from multiple parties. The company said it will consider proposals in which the Warner Bros. business (HBO Max and studios) is sold separately from Discovery Global, the TV-centric company, which aligns with Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s already-underway plan to split into two companies by April 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison previously submitted three bids for WBD but the Warner Bros. Discovery board rejected his previous highest offer of $23.50\/share, comprising 80% cash and 20% stock. In his previous bids, Ellison had proposed offering WBD chief David Zaslav a co-chairman and co-CEO role in a merged Paramount Skydance-WBD; it\u2019s not known if that\u2019s still on the table in Paramount\u2019s latest offer.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s possible the board of Warner Bros. Discovery will decide to reject the M&A offers and stick to the company\u2019s previous plan of splitting itself into two pieces: Warner Bros., led by Zaslav as CEO; and Discovery Global, headed by current CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second round of offers for all or part of Warner Bros. Discovery are in from Paramount Skydance,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[5000,156,1094,111,139,69,68338,437,3204],"class_list":{"0":"post-164733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-comcast","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-netflix","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-paramount-skydance","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}