{"id":40309,"date":"2026-04-23T21:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/40309\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T21:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:14:11","slug":"warner-bros-investors-back-82bn-paramount-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/40309\/","title":{"rendered":"Warner Bros investors back \u00a382bn Paramount takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Warner Warner Bros shareholders \u2018overwhelmingly\u2019 supported the takeover by Paramount Skydance – Jerry Uomala\/iStock <\/p>\n

Warner Bros\u2019 investors have backed Paramount\u2019s takeover, bringing the $111bn (\u00a382bn) deal to reshape Hollywood a step closer.<\/p>\n

An initial count of votes at an investor meeting found shareholders \u201coverwhelmingly\u201d supported the takeover by Paramount Skydance<\/a>, the Hollywood giant run by the billionaire Ellison family.<\/p>\n

The investor support means the tie-up between two of Hollywood\u2019s biggest studios will probably be completed by the third quarter of this year, though it still requires approval by regulators.<\/p>\n

Investors are backing the deal despite a widespread backlash in Hollywood, with claims that it will narrow the range of films and TV programmes made and give outsized influence to Donald Trump\u2019s allies.<\/p>\n

Larry Ellison, the Oracle billionaire and long-time supporter of the US president, is helping to fund the deal. His son, David Ellison, runs Paramount.<\/p>\n

It has fuelled fears that the Ellison family will have outsized influence over the US media through their control over the Hollywood studios and their media assets, including CBS News and TikTok\u2019s US division.<\/p>\n

More than 1,000 actors, directors and film-makers warned in an open letter earlier this month<\/a> that the takeover risked driving further consolidation in \u201can already concentrated media landscape\u201d, leading to \u201cless choice for audiences\u201d and \u201cfewer opportunities for creators\u201d.<\/p>\n

Actors including Jane Fonda, Glenn Close and Ben Stiller signed the letter, which also voiced concerns that the deal \u201cprioritises the interests of a small group of powerful stakeholders over the broader public good\u201d. Thousands more Hollywood A-listers subsequently signed the letter, including Robert De Niro and Sofia Coppola.<\/p>\n

David Ellison has insisted the combination<\/a> of the two Hollywood studios will not lead to fewer productions or cinematic releases.<\/p>\n

The transaction will be partly funded by RedBird Capital, a US private equity fund that mounted a takeover bid for The Telegraph before abandoning it last year. RedBird is Paramount\u2019s second-largest shareholder.<\/p>\n

Paramount has also secured funding from Gulf sovereign wealth funds including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Paramount has insisted the Gulf states will not be able to influence the management of the combined company.<\/p>\n

Samuel Di Piazza Jr, the chairman of Warner Bros, said: \u201cWith Paramount, we look forward to creating an exceptional combined company that will expand consumer choice and benefit the global creative talent community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paramount Skydance was formed in August last year through a takeover of Paramount Global by Skydance Media, the film company started by David Ellison in 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warner Bros shareholders \u2018overwhelmingly\u2019 supported the takeover by Paramount Skydance – Jerry Uomala\/iStock Warner Bros\u2019 investors have backed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[1497,18872,1894,3501,813,6946,3039,1368,4379],"class_list":{"0":"post-40309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-larry-ellison","8":"tag-david-ellison","9":"tag-ellison-family","10":"tag-glenn-close","11":"tag-hollywood","12":"tag-larry-ellison","13":"tag-paramount","14":"tag-paramount-skydance","15":"tag-takeover","16":"tag-warner-bros"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116456093373850020","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}