Settlement removes a major obstacle to Ellison’s $110B Warner Bros. takeover after an aggressive months-long dealmaking effort
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison moved his blockbuster Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition substantially closer to completion Monday after Paramount reached a settlement in California with Attorney General Rob Bonta and 11 other states, resolving a major antitrust challenge that threatened to delay the roughly $110 billion transaction beyond a costly 0.ng and navigating regulatory reviews around the world, welcomed the agreement and credited the parties with reaching terms focused on the industry’s future.
“Our shared aim was an outcome that best serves consumers, workers and — most importantly — the creative community so vital to the art of visual storytelling,” Ellison said. “We’re confident this agreement does exactly that.”
Ellison’s campaign for Warner Bros. stretched back through a bidding contest with Netflix. Paramount ultimately offered $31 per share in cash, agreed to cover Warner Bros.’ $2.8 billion Netflix termination fee and secured roughly $47 billion in equity financing backed by the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners. Paramount later said regulators representing 69 jurisdictions had cleared the transaction.
The settlement requires Paramount to release 30 theatrical films annually for two years and 32 annually for the following three, increase U.S. production spending and establish an editorial-independence board covering CBS News and CNN. The agreement remains subject to judicial approval.
Bonta, who led the states’ July lawsuit alleging the combination would reduce competition, maintained Monday that settling did not reverse his broader concerns about media consolidation.
“This settlement is not a vote of support for this merger,” Bonta said.
The states’ position differed from the Justice Department, which concluded in June that its investigation found the merger was not likely to harm competition or American consumers in streaming, linear television or theatrical film production and distribution.
