{"id":567137,"date":"2026-04-06T03:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T03:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/567137\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T03:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T03:27:08","slug":"paramount-nears-deal-for-gulf-state-funds-to-back-wbd-merger-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/567137\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount Nears Deal For Gulf State Funds To Back WBD Merger (Report)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tParamount<\/a> Skydance seems to be nearing a deal to secure funding from three Gulf nation sovereign wealth funds to back its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a>, according to a Sunday report in the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tPer the outlet, the corporation is seeking signed equity commitments of close to $24 billion, for which Saudi Arabia<\/a>\u2019s Public Investment Fund has agreed to contribute approximately $10 billion. The talks, which also involve Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi\u2019s L\u2019imad Holding Co., may result in a signed agreement as soon as Monday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe move comes after Democratic lawmakers expressed national security concerns<\/a> related to foreign ownership and backing of the merger<\/a>. Last month, a group of senators called on\u00a0FCC<\/a>\u00a0chairman\u00a0Brendan Carr<\/a>\u00a0to conduct a \u201cfull and independent\u201d review of\u00a0Paramount\u2018s proposed $81 billion deal due to Arab state investment. At the same time, Carr has said the agency would have minimal oversight over the transaction, as it does not involve the transfer of ownership of broadcast stations.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn its open letter, Democratic leadership cited a provision of the Communications Act, which dictates that foreign entities may not hold more than 25% of the equity or voting interest in a U.S. company that holds a license without the commission\u2019s approval. Meanwhile, Paramount has maintained that the transaction does not require oversight by the Committee on Foreign Investment as the Gulf bodies will not have governance over the corporation.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn earlier version of Paramount\u2019s hostile bid included financial backing from Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent and President\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law\u00a0Jared Kushner\u2019s private equity firm Affinity Partners. Both are no longer involved, and the former had earlier withdrawn from the transaction amid concerns that its interest would trigger Foreign Investment review.<\/p>\n

\n\tGulf investors\u2019 seemingly imminent backing will supplement costs faced by Paramount Skydance chair and CEO David Ellison and his billionaire father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Additional backers are RedBird Capital Partners, Bank of America, Citigroup and asset management firm Apollo Global Management.<\/p>\n

\n\tNews of the near-to-closing talks also comes as the region faces continuing turmoil and instability with the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, WBD has set an April 23 special meeting of shareholders to\u00a0vote on the media giant\u2019s sale<\/a>\u00a0to freshly merged entity Paramount Skydance, constituting a key step forward in the process. The deal is also pending regulatory review in Europe, and WSJ reports Paramount execs have told employees to prepare for potential close by the end of July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paramount Skydance seems to be nearing a deal to secure funding from three Gulf nation sovereign wealth funds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,4208,228983,131,10343],"class_list":{"0":"post-567137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-paramount","10":"tag-paramount-wbd","11":"tag-saudi-arabia","12":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}