Skydance closes the Warner deal and moves the ticker to SKYD

The Warner deal closed on Tuesday, and the ticker is now SKYD

Paramount Skydance completed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday and is operating the combined company under the name Skydance. Shares moved from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange and trade as SKYD. Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders received about 31.02 dollars a share in cash.

David Ellison, 43, chairman and chief executive, called the day historic for the company and for the industry. In a statement he said the aim had been to put two studios together and field a stronger competitor, with the talent and reach to tell stories in every genre and on every platform. The studios now under one roof include Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., the houses behind Mission: Impossible, Harry Potter and the DC films, plus CBS, CNN, Paramount+ and HBO Max.

The price is quoted two ways in the same news cycle. Reuters described a 110 billion dollar takeover. The Los Angeles Times described a 111 billion dollar transaction. The cash consideration to Warner shareholders is the firmer public number: about 31 dollars a share. Netflix had dropped its own bid. Paramount agreed in February to buy Warner Bros. Discovery at 31 dollars a share.

Who paid, and what the debt looks like

Skydance said the transaction included 47 billion dollars of new equity, led by the Larry Ellison family, RedBird, a sovereign-wealth grouping and LionTree. The Los Angeles Times reported that the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi contributed 24 billion dollars in equity. Reuters put the combined company's debt at about 80 billion dollars. A later note put the debt near 82 billion. On 30 September the company priced 41.4 billion dollars and 885 million euros of secured notes, plus a term loan of 8.5 billion dollars and 850 million euros. The notes pay between 6.3 percent and 9.125 percent a year.

Ellison and co-chief executive Ynon Kreiz are targeting at least 6 billion dollars in annual cost savings within three years. The company has said it expects nearly 70 billion dollars in revenue. CNN and CBS News leadership is to remain unchanged, Reuters reported. Management has also spoken of a single streaming service in place of the current Paramount+ and HBO Max split, of AI tools for production staff, and of about 30 films a year. Job cuts were described as difficult decisions still to come, not as a published headcount.

How the legal block came off

In July, California and 11 other states sued to block the deal. A federal judge in California delayed closing until a trial. Settlements with a coalition of US states and with a Hollywood writers' union then removed the main legal barriers. Those settlements are why Tuesday's close was possible. They are not a published consent decree in the reports available on Wednesday, so the precise conduct remedies are still thin in public.

The useful split for a reader is between the equity cheque and the debt stack. Forty-seven billion dollars of new equity, 24 billion of it from the three Gulf royal families, sits against roughly 80 billion dollars of debt and a coupon band of 6.3 to 9.125 percent on the new notes. The savings target, 6 billion dollars a year within three years, is the number management will be measured against. The ticker change, from PSKY on Nasdaq to SKYD on the NYSE, is the market fact that already happened.

The combined slate is the part a cinema reader can check without a spreadsheet. Paramount brings Mission: Impossible and a broadcast network in CBS. Warner brings Harry Potter, the DC library, HBO and CNN. Ellison has said the merged company will use the Skydance name he picked two decades ago when he started the studio. The close ends a year of bidding that began as a contest with Netflix and became a court fight with a group of states.

A viewer deciding whether the close changes what is on screen this year will not see a new film on Wednesday. The near-term changes are the ticker, the debt coupons, and the promise of one streamer. The 30-film target and the 6 billion dollar savings target are management numbers, not a release calendar.