Paramount closes Warner Bros deal as Skydance and plans a single streamer

Paramount has completed its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery and renamed the combined company Skydance. The company announced the close on Tuesday , and its shares now trade on the New York Stock Exchange as SKYD. Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders received about $31.02 a share in cash.

Skydance owns two major film studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. It also owns HBO Max, Paramount+, CBS, HBO, CNN and CBS News. Its sports arms are CBS Sports and TNT Sports.

The company said its streaming products will merge into a single service over time. It gave no timetable. Skydance also owns Discovery+ and Pluto TV. Paramount had already begun moving Pluto TV, BET+ and Paramount+ onto one tech stack in June.

In a “Day 1” memo to staff, published by Business Insider , chief executive David Ellison and co-chief executive Ynon Kreiz set four priorities. One is to become the most technologically capable company in media.

“We will embrace the opportunities AI provides to expand what our creatives can imagine and to make our businesses even more productive,” they wrote.

The memo added that technology must serve the art, never the other way around. Chief product officer Dane Glasgow sent his own memo the same day, telling product and tech staff to build prototypes quickly . Business Insider published it too.

Skydance has promised at least 30 films a year in cinemas, each with a theatrical window of at least 45 days.

Paramount agreed in February to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for $31 a share, after Netflix dropped its own bid. In July, California and 11 other states sued to block it . A federal judge in California then delayed the deal until a trial.

The states settled in September. The terms include minimum film releases, extra domestic production spending and an editorial independence board for CNN and CBS News. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved the settlement on 30 September. On Monday, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied an emergency application from five consumers who wanted the merger stopped.

Skydance named its leadership team on Monday. Kreiz, the former chief executive of Mattel, runs integration and daily operations. Casey Bloys, head of HBO, and George Cheeks lead streaming and TV content. On Tuesday, Laurene Powell Jobs and Activision founder Bobby Kotick joined its board , with Tony Blair as an adviser.

To pay for the deal, the company priced $41.4bn and €885M of secured notes on 30 September, plus a term loan of $8.5bn and €850M. The notes pay between 6.3% and 9.125% a year.

Skydance expects nearly $70bn in revenue and is targeting at least $6bn in annual cost savings within three years. It aims to bring net debt down to three times its core earnings by the end of 2029. The company carries $82bn of debt, The New York Times reported , and Fitch Ratings downgraded it on Tuesday.

“Integrating two companies will bring change, including difficult decisions that affect our workforce,” the memo said.

Ellison addressed staff at a town hall that afternoon, according to audio obtained by Business Insider .

“There will be changes, and there will be impacts. I’m not going to pretend otherwise,” Ellison said.

“Ultimately, our success will be determined by performance,” Kreiz said.

CNN chief Mark Thompson and CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss keep their roles. At the town hall, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper asked Ellison whether he was pledging not to interfere with CNN’s coverage. Ellison said he was, the Times reported.

Ellison also said he supported CNN’s challenge to the White House press ban . At a news conference later on Tuesday, he noted that other executives had attended state dinners with President Trump.

“We were in a transaction review process, but with that said, we are now turning that page,” Ellison said.