Paramount will have the help of Saudi Arabia to take control of Warner Bros.. The company led by David Ellison is negotiating a compromise investment close to 24 billion dollars with the sovereign funds of three petromonarchies of the Persian Gulf, according to advances The Wall Street Journal.
Paramount has already secured $10 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and is close to closing another deal with two funds owned by the ruling Islamist dictatorships. Qatar y Abu Dhabiin United Arab Emirates.
With this movement, the firm ensures enough capital to cover the buy from Warner Bros. for $81 billion. The operation, which was closed last February after a gruesome negotiation and the withdrawal of Netflixwill allow the Ellisons to take over the film and television giant that owns HBO, CNN or the franchise Harry Potter.
Change of course
The acquisition is expected to transform the American audiovisual and media landscape and boost the power of David Ellison, son of the technology magnate Larry Ellisonowner of Oracleand close to Donald Trump. The president of USA He openly defended the merger between both companies. The relationship between the Paramount leadership and the White House It raises fears of a purge and changes in the editorial line of news networks such as CNN, which Trump has been criticizing for years.
The purchase agreement is pending review by regulators of the European Union and, according to The Wall Street JournalParamount contemplates that it will close permanently at the end of July.
Despite contributing large sums of money, the group of investors from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE will not have the right to vote. They will not own 25% of the new entity either, so Paramount executives consider that a review of the agreement by the Federal Communications Commission and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US will not be necessary, the economic newspaper reports.
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