Paramount CEO David Ellison insists that the Warner Bros deal will happen, but developments this week are adding to the bill… While the ongoing saga of Vin Diesel and Fast Forever has been creating the loudest movie news updates of the last few days, in terms of frequency of developments, Paramount’s attempt to buy Warner ... Paramount Warner Bros deal | The latest hurdles, as the bill ramps up
Paramount CEO David Ellison insists that the Warner Bros deal will happen, but developments this week are adding to the bill…
While the ongoing saga of Vin Diesel and Fast Forever has been creating the loudest movie news updates of the last few days, in terms of frequency of developments, Paramount’s attempt to buy Warner Bros isn’t too far behind.
The $111bn deal, which has David Ellison behind it, was due to close this autumn. In fact, one of the sweeteners that saw Paramount emerge victorious over Netflix in the battle for Warner Bros was an agreement to pay Paramount shareholders a penalty of $7m a day from 1st October, should the deal not be done by then.
The deal will not be getting done by then.
A significant antitrust case has been brought, and yesterday, a date was set for that to land in court. Trial date? 2nd March 2027, and then 12 court days have been set aside after that. The penalty charge just to get to the end of all of that, just for the time delays, will be $1.2bn.
David Ellison has given an earnings call for Paramount too, and he’s been bullish about this. He insists that he still expects the acquisition to be completed, is open to an out of court settlement or solution, “but we also really believe that we’ll win at trial.”
He’s hardly going to say he’s going into trial expecting to lose, of course.
Ellison seems to very firmly believe what’s led to the antitrust case in the first place: that’d be CNN.
Writing for The New York Times, Trump ally Ellison did his best to appear politically neutral, noting that when/if the deal completes, his company will own two news networks: CNN and CBS News. “”hen it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views. I believe that news should be based on facts and truth.”, he argued.
The antitrust case has been brought by 12 state attorneys across the US, and there’s a growing suspicion that the whole deal isn’t quite as done as it first appeared. Should the deal not go through, then Paramount will be liable for a $7bn penalty fee to Warner Bros.
I’m no business analyst, which in hindsight might have been more useful information to put across at the start of the story. But still: I’m going to suggest a lot of lawyers are doing very well out of this, and thousnads of workers remain concerned as to whether they’ll have an income in 12 months time.
Happy times. Let billionaires keep playing Monopoly. Nothing could go wrong.
