Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery close $111-billion merger

Los Angeles Times·6 Oct 2026·

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Summary · why it matters

The $111-billion merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery officially closed on Tuesday, creating a new Hollywood colossus controlled by David Ellison. The 43-year-old chairman and chief executive, whose small Paramount fended off Netflix and a group of 12 state attorneys general led by California's Rob Bonta, now oversees HBO, CNN, CBS, Comedy Central, TBS, Food Network, two traditional Hollywood studios and two major streaming services. Shares of the new company, named Skydance, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SKYD, opening around $9.70, about half of Paramount's 52-week high. The company emerged with more than $80 billion in debt used to finance the buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery investors at $31.17 a share, and it expects $70 billion a year in revenue, still trailing the Walt Disney Co.'s $94.4 billion in sales last year. Skydance said it will find $6 billion in cost cuts over three years, primarily from merging technology, integration and procurement as well as marketing costs and real estate rationalization, while the Ellison family will be controlling shareholders alongside longtime Skydance investor RedBird Capital Partners. The transaction included $47 billion of new equity investment led by the Larry Ellison Family, RedBird, sovereign wealth funds and LionTree, priced at $12 a share, with the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi contributing $24 billion in equity, and debt financing led by Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo.

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