Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) shareholders finally have a growth stock on their hands — for today, anyway.
Amid a Wall Street Journal report that Paramount Skydance is preparing a mostly cash bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, shares in WBD have jumped nearly 36 percent. The bid is said to be backed by the Ellison family. David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, recently purchased Paramount Global to merge with his own Skydance company. The deal closed just last month.
A spokesperson for Paramount Skydance declined to comment to The Hollywood Reporter; a rep for Warner Bros. Discovery did not immediately return a call.
At their peak, WBD shares today topped $17 apiece. They opened under $13.
It has been a heck of a week for the elder Ellison. On Wednesday, Larry Ellison’s net worth increased by about $100 billion. A huge jump in the value of Oracle allowed him to temporarily surpass Elon Musk for the title of world’s richest person.
Per the WSJ report, the Paramount Skydance bid will be for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery. That’s important, as David Zaslav is currently in the process of splitting his company into two entities, which he just said yesterday is now expected to close in April 2026. The plan in place there is for Zaslav to run “Warner Bros.,” which will consist of the studios, HBO and HBO Max, and his current (and longtime) chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels to take the reins as CEO of the legacy basic cable channels (and Discovery+).
Warner Bros. Discovery was formed in April 2022 by a merger between Zaslav’s Discovery, Inc. and AT&T’s WarnerMedia. The combination came with a huge debt load, a good portion of which has since been paid down. The lion’s share of what remains is going to be spun off with the cable business.
It is easy to see the regulatory hurdles that an attempted combination of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery could bring about. The good news for Ellison is that such a mega-deal would not require him to sell off a broadcast network; he has CBS, Warner Bros. Discovery only deals in streaming and cable (and movies, of course).