Paramount has upped the ante in its hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery
Paramount has upped the ante in its hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, announcing Monday that Larry Ellison will personally guarantee the tens of billions of dollars he is putting up to bankroll the transaction. The Ellisons will also let shareholders peer into the finances of their family trust.
The Warner Bros. board of directors has rejected Paramount’s bid multiple times, opting instead to go with an offer from Netflix, which WBD, CNN’s parent company, says is more valuable. The board also said Paramount has misrepresented itself to WBD shareholders, calling into question the legitimacy of the deal’s proposed financing.
To counteract that critique, Paramount said Oracle founder Larry Ellison – the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison – will guarantee all $40.4 billion of the equity he’s putting up to finance the deal. That’s a big guarantee, putting Larry Ellison on the hook for about a sixth of his net worth if something falls through.
Larry Ellison also agreed not to revoke his family trust, which could have complicated the potential financing of the deal, and Paramount is publishing records that confirm the trust owns 1.16 billion Oracle shares, which the WBD board called into question.
Paramount also upped its breakup fee to $5.8 billion from $5 billion, matching Netflix’s promised payment to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders if the deal were to fall through.
