Larry Ellison Pledges $40 Billion to Bolster Warner Bros. Bid

<p>Watch Bloomberg Businessweek Daily every day on YouTube: <a href="http://bit.ly/3vTiACF">http://bit.ly/3vTiACF</a>.<br />Larry Ellison is throwing his personal fortune behind Paramount Skydance Corp.&rsquo;s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., aiming to give his son&rsquo;s company an advantage in a fiercely contested takeover battle with Netflix Inc.<br />Both suitors moved on Monday to strengthen the financial backing for their offers, though they stopped short of increasing their bids. Netflix refinanced a portion of its planned $59 billion of debt as a way to ensure a lasting investment-grade rating &mdash; a key advantage it holds over the lower-rated Paramount.<br />But it&rsquo;s the personal guarantee of Ellison, the world&rsquo;s fifth-richest person with a $246 billion fortune, that could force a rethink by Warner Bros. The board previously urged shareholders to reject Paramount&rsquo;s offer in part because the billionaire father of its Chief Executive Officer David Ellison had backed the $40.4 billion of equity financing with a revocable trust that could, as the name implies, be withdrawn or amended at any time.<br />Paramount has been aggressively pursuing Warner Bros. for months and Ellison was taken by surprise when the board agreed to a deal with Netflix for $82.7 billion for the streaming and studio assets. The strength of the financing for each bid has emerged as a decisive issue in the takeover battle, which unleashed two massive debt-fueled offers that rank among the largest in the past decade. Paramount took its offer of $30 a share, or $108.4 billion including debt, for the entire company directly to shareholders.<br />Today's show features:</p> <ul> <li>Bloomberg News Media Editor Molly Schuetz and Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Credit Analyst Stephen Flynn on the latest developments in the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war</li> <li>Que Nguyen, Chief Investment Officer, Equity Strategies with Research Affiliates on whether small- and mid-cap stocks are contributing to the bull market and how much more growth we can expect from the AI trade</li> <li>Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Commodity Strategist Mike McGlone on trading trends in gold and crypto</li> <li>Darrick Hamilton, University Professor, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at the New School, on whether Trump accounts can help close the racial wealth gap in America</li> </ul><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>