{"id":270229,"date":"2025-11-18T19:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/270229\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T19:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:15:07","slug":"paramount-denies-warner-bros-discovery-bid-involves-arab-wealth-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/270229\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount Denies Warner Bros. Discovery Bid Involves Arab Wealth Funds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tUPDATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/paramount-skydance\/\" id=\"auto-tag_paramount-skydance\" data-tag=\"paramount-skydance\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paramount Skydance<\/a> has denied a Variety report that the company was forming an investment consortium with the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi to submit a bid for <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/warner-bros-discovery\/\" id=\"auto-tag_warner-bros-discovery\" data-tag=\"warner-bros-discovery\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a>,<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cThe information Variety published is categorically inaccurate,\u201d a rep for Paramount Skydance said in a statement. \u201cThis is a confidential process, which we respect and, as such, will not be commenting until the process is over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tVariety, citing anonymous sources, previously reported the Ellison family (which owns 100% voting control in Paramount Skydance) was putting together a $71 billion bid in conjunction with funds from three Arab countries: Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe board of <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/biz\/news\/warner-bros-discovery-bids-paramount-netflix-comcast-1236584564\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Warner Bros. Discovery has set a Nov. 20 deadline for initial bids<\/a> from interested acquirers, which also include Comcast and Netflix. The board of Warner Bros. Discovery had previously rejected a $23.50\/share offer from <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/david-ellison\/\" id=\"auto-tag_david-ellison\" data-tag=\"david-ellison\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Ellison<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\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<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tReps for Warner Bros. Discovery and Comcast declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATED: Paramount Skydance has denied a Variety report that the company was forming an investment consortium with the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[16384,96,21409,391,56,54,55,18200],"class_list":{"0":"post-270229","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-paramount-skydance","11":"tag-tv","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom","15":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}