Paramount closes $110 billion Warner Bros takeover; new Skydance trades as SKYD

Paramount Skydance completed its blockbuster $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery on Tuesday, creating one of the largest entertainment and news businesses on earth. The combined company, called Skydance, moved its shares from the Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange to trade under the ticker SKYD.

The numbers behind the deal: about $81 billion in equity value, roughly $110 billion including debt, according to Reuters and the AP. Warner Bros Discovery shareholders received about $31.02 per share in cash. Under one roof now sit Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros, HBO and HBO Max, CNN, CBS, DC Studios, Paramount+, and TNT Sports, along with franchises including Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Mission: Impossible.

The company will be led by CEO David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, alongside Ynon Kreiz, the outgoing Mattel chief, who will run integration. In a memo to employees, Ellison called the merger a chance to build a next generation media company "powered by creativity and technology," saying the goal was not simply to get bigger but "to take on the biggest players in our industry." At a press conference Tuesday he blamed years of industry complacency: "They allowed Netflix to disrupt their business. They allowed Amazon Prime Video to come and disrupt their business. They didn't transform, and they held on to the past for too long."

The road to closing ran through a bidding war. Paramount agreed to buy Warner Bros Discovery in February after beating out Netflix, which had agreed in December to buy the studio and streaming business for about $82 billion. September settlements with 12 Democratic state attorneys general and the Writers Guild cleared the final antitrust hurdles. Investors from Saudi Arabia and Qatar helped finance Ellison's bid.

What comes next is the hard part. Executives acknowledged Tuesday that layoffs are coming as the company pursues at least $6 billion in annual cost savings within three years. "Integrating two companies will bring change, including difficult decisions that affect our workforce," Ellison and Kreiz wrote in a memo. Consolidation on this scale always raises the same question: whether a bigger company makes better entertainment, or simply a more powerful gatekeeper. The next three years of programming and pink slips will be the answer.