Paramount Skydance completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on the sixth of October and renamed itself Skydance Corporation on the same day, moving its listing from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange and changing its ticker from PSKY to SKYD, according to filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission by both companies.
Each Warner Bros. Discovery Series A common share converted into 31 dollars in cash plus what the filings call ticking consideration, accruing at 0.00277778 dollars per share per calendar day from the end of September through to closing, giving a total of about 31.0167 dollars per share. The aggregate ticking consideration came to 41,886,975.78 dollars. Warner Bros. Discovery ceased trading on Nasdaq the same day.
Gulf sovereign money is in the equity
The transaction was financed in part by 47 billion dollars of new equity in Class B common stock issued at 12 dollars a share, and the investor list is the part of this deal that matters most to readers in the region. The round was led by the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners alongside Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, L'IMAD and LionTree. Debt financing was led by Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo.
That places two Gulf sovereign wealth funds inside the capital structure of what the company describes as a group with combined revenue of nearly 70 billion dollars. Both funds have built media and entertainment exposure over the past five years, the Public Investment Fund through gaming and live events and the Qatar Investment Authority through long held stakes in European media, but an equity position in a consolidated Hollywood studio group of this size is a different order of commitment.
What the company has promised
Skydance has set out at least 6 billion dollars of run rate synergies within three years, net leverage of three times by the end of 2029 and more than 10 billion dollars of free cash flow by 2030, against pro forma content spending over the last twelve months of more than 30 billion dollars. Operationally it commits to at least 30 theatrical films a year, each with a minimum 45 day exclusive window, more than 180 television shows, more than 200 million streaming subscribers and audiences in more than 200 countries and territories.
The theatrical window commitment is the most pointed of those numbers. It is a public break from the compressed release patterns both companies experimented with during the streaming land grab, and it reads as a signal to exhibitors and to talent as much as to investors. Whether 6 billion dollars of synergies can be taken out of two studio operations without cutting into that output is the question the next three years will answer.
The transaction received unanimous clearance from competition authorities in nearly 70 jurisdictions. Control is tightly held: the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners hold all of the Class A stock and therefore all the voting shares. David Ellison is chairman and chief executive, Ynon Kreiz co-chief executive, Andrew Brandon-Gordon president, Dennis Cinelli chief financial officer and Makan Delrahim chief legal officer. Ellison called the completion a historic day, not just for Skydance but for the entire industry.
