A few months ago, Larry and David Ellison’s Paramount said it had lined up big backers for its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery: three Middle Eastern countries, which would contribute a total of $24 billion to help buy the media conglomerate.
Now, Paramount has won the rights to WBD, after Netflix walked away. Are those three Gulf states going to help finance Paramount’s new deal?
Paramount won’t say.
In government filings and on an investor call Monday, Paramount reiterated that the Ellisons and private-equity firm RedBird Capital Partners have pledged $47 billion toward the roughly $81 billion Paramount will pay to buy out WBD shareholders. The rest will be financed with debt.
But Paramount doesn’t say how much the Ellisons and RedBird intend to cough up themselves, and how much will come from other investors. A company rep pointed to the merger agreement, which lets them sell pieces of that $47 billion equity commitment — but doesn’t identify who those investors might be.
What we do know: In early December, Paramount had told WBD it intended to raise $24 billion via state-controlled funds from three countries: Saudi Arabia, which would contribute $12 billion, and Abu Dhabi and Qatar, which would kick in $7 billion each. And Paramount later said those countries would not ask for board seats or voting rights alongside their equity stakes.
So it’s entirely possible that those three countries’ funds will be in this deal, too. I’ve asked fund reps for comment; I’ve also asked Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously flagged potential regulatory issues involving foreign investors in Paramount’s deal.
The notion of other countries owning a piece of a powerful American-run media giant, which has multiple news operations, streamers, and movie studios, seems like the kind of thing you might hear politicians, regulators, and even normal Americans talking about. Particularly given the participation of Saudi Arabia, whose government killed a Washington Post journalist in 2018, per US intelligence.
It may also explain why Paramount has never emphasized the idea of foreign investment in any of its press releases or public presentations about the deal. Or why Paramount once shot down a story saying it was rounding up Gulf investment.
But outside of a few complaints from the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the notion that Middle Eastern nations might own a meaningful stake in an important US company doesn’t seem to have registered as an issue, for now.
One reason is that Gulf state money is increasingly everywhere, including in big US companies. The Saudis, for instance, are set to be the primary owner of video game giant Electronic Arts once that deal closes this year. Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund now owns 15% of U.S. TikTok’s operations.
And Donald Trump has made doing business in the Middle East a big part of his second-term focus: Last year, he brought a who’s who of American CEOs to a business summit in Saudi Arabia and later hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House.
So it’s very possible Gulf state money will end up in a giant American media company, too. It would be nice to know for sure.
