Articles by Alexandra Steigrad

Entertainment

Paramount denies report it’s working with Saudis, other Arab funds on $71B bid for Warner Bros. Discovery

Paramount Skydance rejected a report that it’s working with a consortium of Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds on a $71 billion offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, calling it “categorically inaccurate.” Variety reported on Tuesday that David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is putting together the massive bid in conjunction with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter. “The information Variety published is categorically inaccurate,” a rep for Paramount said in a statement to The Post. “This is a confidential process, which we respect and, as such, will not be commenting until the process is over.” The offer, which would value WBD at about $28.65 a share based on the shares outstanding, is being largely backed by the Ellison family, with Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital also supporting the bid, Variety reported. The outlet said each of the sovereign funds would contribute $7 billion and Paramount Skydance would lay out $50 billion. The Warner Bros. board previously rejected multiple bids from Paramount for as much as $24 a share, The Post reported last month. Representatives for the sovereign wealth funds didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Shares of WBD jumped as much as 6.4% in New York on the initial Variety report before those gains leveled off. Paramount shares rose as much as 3.7%. WBD, home to HBO, CNN, Warner Bros. film studio and the Food Network, put itself up for sale in October after fielding interest from multiple parties. It has set a Thursday deadline for bids. Aside from Paramount, Netflix and Comcast are also expected to make an offer for the movie and streaming parts of the business. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts recently visited Saudi Arabia while exploring a possible bid for WBD. Paramount is believed to be the only party interested in acquiring WBD entirely. Should a deal go through, a merger between Paramount — home to Paramount Pictures, CBS, Showtime and Nickelodeon — and WBD would reshape the media industry by putting two of the biggest movie studios and two of the most influential news networks under one roof. Ellison’s aggressive push to buy Warner Bros. comes just months after he bought Paramount in August, combining it with Skydance. While the deal will likely face regulatory scrutiny, President Trump has smiled on it, as The Post previously reported. He’s an admirer of Ellison’s dad Larry Ellison, the low-profile billionaire co-founder of Oracle. WBD honcho David Zaslav reportedly prefers to split the company in two, separating the company’s lucrative streaming and film assets from its struggling cable TV assets.