{"id":751766,"date":"2026-07-09T03:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T03:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/751766\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T03:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T03:20:09","slug":"paramount-wbd-earliest-closing-date-reportedly-pushed-back-amidst-scrutiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/751766\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount-WBD earliest closing date reportedly pushed back amidst scrutiny"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most optimistic timeline for Paramount\u2019s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery has been pushed back as the deal faces mounting pressure from several different sources.<\/p>\n

The earliest date Paramount can close its $110 billion acquisition<\/a> of Warner Bros. Discovery has been pushed back from Thursday, July 16 to Wednesday, July 22, according to a report<\/a> by Jody Godoy of Reuters, a delay that occurs as the transaction faces increasing scrutiny from state attorneys general and overseas regulators.<\/p>\n

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield is asking a local court to force Paramount to provide documents for an investigation into the transaction and to impose a 60-day delay for any closure. The Oregon Department of Justice said in a press release<\/a> Tuesday that Paramount did not comply with a request for records related to potential lobbying of public officials, any role the company may have played in a U.S. Department of Justice statement approving the deal, and any internal efforts to receive regulatory clearance.<\/p>\n

While the current delay would not meaningfully impact the timeline, any further hold would run the risk of triggering the quarterly \u2018ticking fee\u2019 Paramount committed to paying WBD shareholders as part of its deal. The $0.25\/share \u201cticking fee<\/a>\u201d would be calculated daily for every quarter the deal is not closed \u201cbeginning after September 30, 2026,\u201d reportedly equating to about $650 million\/quarter. Paramount would owe WBD a $7 billion termination fee if the deal does not close due to not receiving regulatory approval.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to let Paramount Skydance play hide the ball so they can rush through their massive merger,\u201d Rayfield said in a statement, adding later that \u201cParamount had every opportunity to hand over records and answer a few basic questions. Instead, it is trying to run out the clock and evade scrutiny. We\u2019re asking the court to make sure Oregonians get the answers they\u2019re owed before this deal closes, not after.\u201d<\/p>\n

The media conglomerate has already received regulatory approval from several governments across the globe, some of which include the United States, Canada, Australia, China, South Africa and Serbia. United Kingdom culture secretary Lisa Nandy said last month that she is \u201cminded to intervene\u201d in the transaction, citing the public interest and maintaining pluralities \u201cof views in news media\u201d and \u201cpersons with control of the media enterprises.\u201d The European Union is said to have extended a \u201cnew provisional deadline\u201d for its Phase 1 investigation about the deal to Wednesday, July 22, which reportedly occurred after Paramount submitted commitments in late June.<\/p>\n

A coalition of U.S. state attorneys general could reportedly file a lawsuit against the transaction. California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in a statement in February that the state was \u201ctaking a very close look\u201d at the transaction and that they are \u201ccommitted to fighting market consolidation that we find unlawful.\u201d Paramount is already facing a federal antitrust lawsuit filed in California by \u201csubscribers and individual viewers of streaming and cable television programming, consumers of news media, and consumers of theatrical exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Paramount is successfully able to close its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, the combined company would have net debt of $79 billion leveraged at 6.5x EBITDA before synergies. The company has projected synergies of more than $6 billion from the deal, a majority of which \u201ccomes from non-labor sources,\u201d per Paramount chief strategy officer Andrew Gordon. This would be on top of the already $3 billion in synergies Paramount committed to when the existing company formed through a merger with Skydance Media.<\/p>\n

Paramount would acquire the WBD studio and streaming assets in addition to linear networks that were once slated to be spun into a standalone, publicly-traded company. This would also place MCBB March Madness networks CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV within the same company, forming a sports portfolio that would also include the NFL, college football, MLB, NASCAR and NHL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most optimistic timeline for Paramount\u2019s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery has been pushed back as the deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,17836,92,191666],"class_list":["post-751766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-paramount-skydance-merger","tag-tv","tag-warner-bros-discovery-sale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751766","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=751766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}