Paramount said on Monday that Larry Ellison, the father of Paramount’s chief executive David Ellison, is personally guaranteeing the roughly $40.4 billion in equity that the company is offering as part of its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
The announcement of Mr. Ellison’s personal guarantee is meant to address concerns that the Warner Bros. Discovery’s board had expressed about Paramount’s original offer.
Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced an $83 billion deal to sell a large part of its business to Netflix. Warner Brothers said Netflix offered a better deal for its shareholders than Paramount’s $108 billion bid to acquire the full company. After the Warner Bros. Discovery board rejected Paramount’s bid, it brought the same offer to the company’s shareholders.
Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery advised shareholders to reject Paramount’s offer. One of the main concerns Warner Bros. Discovery mentioned in its recommendation was the lack of a personal guarantee from Oracle co-founder, Larry Ellison. According to the terms of that offer, a revocable trust in Mr. Ellison’s name would back the bid, and the board worried that it would have limited recourse if it fell apart.
Paramount said on Monday that the deal would now include a personal guarantee from Mr. Ellison, putting one of the richest men in the world on the hook if the deal fell apart. He is expected to get financial contributions from other partners for the deal, including roughly $24 billion from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds as well as debt financing from a group of banks.
“Paramount has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to acquiring WBD,” David Ellison said in a statement. “We expect the board of directors of WBD to take the necessary steps to secure this value-enhancing transaction and preserve and strengthen an iconic Hollywood treasure for the future.”
Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery were up more than 3 percent in morning trading. A company representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment,
Paramount made other revisions to the deal to address Warner Bros. Discovery’s concerns. It increased the amount it would pay Warner Bros. Discovery if regulators blocked the deal to $5.8 billion, up from $5 billion. Netflix has offered to pay Warner Bros. Discovery $5.8 billion as part of its deal.
Mr. Ellison has been a key figure in David Ellison’s efforts to amass a media empire. Larry Ellison helped finance his son’s $8 billion deal for Paramount, which closed this summer. He also met with Warner Bros. Discovery executives as he backed his son’s monthslong courtship of the of the media giant.
In those efforts, Larry Ellison’s friendly relationship with President Trump has taken center stage, given the president’s frequent interest in media deals. The Ellisons’ acquisition of Paramount, which owns CBS News, dragged on for months as it grappled with a lawsuit brought by Mt. Trump over the editing of an interview on the CBS News program “60 Minutes.” The deal closed shortly after Paramount agreed to settle the suit for $16 million.
On Sunday, “60 Minutes” again found itself in the spotlight, after it abruptly removed a segment that was to feature the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador.
The decision to pull the segment was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief, requested several changes to the segment. In a statement on Sunday, Ms. Weiss said: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be.
Ms. Weiss was appointed in October after David Ellison, who heads CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, acquired her independent news and opinion site, The Free Press.
Antitrust experts say the deals proposed by both Netflix and Paramount pose potential regulatory concerns. President Trump, whose administration must approve a deal, has said that he plans to play a role in any decision about any Warner Bros. Discovery arrangement. Presidents are generally not supposed to influence the regulators who review major corporate deals.
Netflix has been pursuing its own political inroads. Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive of Netflix, has met privately with Mr. Trump about the transaction.
Lauren Hirsch is a Times reporter who covers deals and dealmakers in Wall Street and Washington.
The post Larry Ellison Personally Guarantees Paramount Bid for Warner Brothers appeared first on New York Times.
