What Paramount's Gulf-backed Warner Bros ownership could mean for US media

The bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery has escalated after Paramount Skydance dangled a hostile takeover bid worth $108.7 billion in a last-ditch effort to steal the media giant away from Netflix.

Netflix initially won the battle with a blockbuster $82.7 billion deal on Friday – until Paramount on Monday unleashed a $30-per-share cash offer.

The Netflix ownership would have resulted in Warner Bros Discovery's global networks unit spinning off into a new standalone company called Discovery Global, which would be completed by the third quarter of 2026, according to an internal memo from Warner Bros Discovery chief executive David Zaslav viewed by The National.

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Paramount Skydance’s latest takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery is backed by Gulf funds – including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding, and the Qatar Investment Authority – and highlights the growing appetite among Arab investors to take significant stakes in global media assets.

Some US legislators have expressed fears that Middle East money might influence media content and invite security scrutiny for the bid approval, Warner Bros Discovery told Paramount, according to the Financial Times.

However, analysts dismiss that notion and said that money from the Arab world is just like any other investment – it helps businesses expand, enhances brand recognition and is a vote of confidence in target assets.

Background connections

Paramount Skydance is a mass-media multinational backed by Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner's investment firm. It is supported by the Ellison family, whose patriarch, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has close ties with US President Donald Trump and several Middle East funds, according to a regulatory filing.

The PIF and Affinity have previously teamed up for the sale in September of the US video game giant Electronic Arts for $55 billion, billed as the largest leveraged buyout in history.

New York's Warner Bros Discovery is a global conglomerate, home to recognised brands such as HBO, CNN, Discovery and Warner Bros Pictures, which reach cinemas, TV screens and mobile devices.

Interest in Warner Bros Discovery came most notably from two sides: an alliance between Comcast and the PIF, and another from Paramount, reported to be backed by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Qatar Investment Authority and, again, the PIF.

The combined assets under management of the three Gulf wealth funds are around $2.5 trillion. The Comcast bid was worth $57 billion, while Paramount Skydance's was $74 billion, until it was increased by nearly half on Monday.

Paramount's new deal has the three Arab wealth funds providing $24 billion, the Ellisons contributing $12 billion of the $41 billion in equity to finance the takeover, and the remainder from Affinity and US investment management firm RedBird Capital Partners, the FT reported.

That was after six increasingly higher proposals in 12 weeks from Paramount, in the course of which the company included, then dumped, backing from China's Tencent, and the onboarding of the three Gulf SWFs plus Mr Kushner, the FT said. Warner Bros Discovery – worried that the involvement of Arab money might invite congressional scrutiny – “stonewalled” Paramount throughout that period, the report added.

“The Netflix-WBD takeover has become Hollywood’s defining power struggle, and Larry Ellison’s hostile bid – buoyed by whispers of Trump-world, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Gulf sovereign funds – has only raised the stakes,” Mazen Hayek, a media consultant in Dubai and former MBC Group spokesman, told The National.

“Clearly, Mr Ellison doesn’t take no for an answer. But, with WBD’s board weighing both offers and Mr Trump distancing himself from the Kushner chatter, the fight now comes down to whose vision of Hollywood’s future shareholders trust more.”

Setting the plot

Netflix's acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery would have created a dominant media powerhouse by combining Netflix’s vast global subscriber base with WBD’s deep catalogue of premium franchises and Warner’s century-old film library. The deal would have given Netflix the robust IP engine it has always lacked while offering WBD shareholders a premium and preserving operational independence.

US regulators will, of course, have to review any deal, but given that Netflix has largely steered clear of regulatory scrutiny, it may not encounter serious roadblocks as Paramount might.

This also recalls the failure of Qatar’s Al Jazeera America, which shut down in 2016 after less than three years on US airwaves. It did not face formal regulatory barriers, but instead suffered from brand distrust, limited distribution, as some cable providers hesitated to carry it due to anticipated backlash, and, ultimately, low ratings and weak viewership

“Perception in the US is shaped by the intersection of ownership visibility, geopolitical context and polarised media politics, and a prominent Saudi stake in a major media firm would attract attention regardless of formal safeguards,” Irina Tsukerman, a geopolitical analyst in New York, told The National.

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An Arab stake in a major US media company would give any of them access to one of the most influential storytelling machines in the world.

Sticking to script

Gaining that foothold, however, does not mean editorial control; instead, the focus would be more on the American media ecosystem, arguably the most influential in the world, and something rising powers understand the value of, the analysts said.

“Structuring tools such as minority equity, preferred securities and covenant-based editorial firewalls enable companies to access capital while limiting influence over newsroom decisions and content commissioning,” Ms Tsukerman said. This is standard practice with veto systems and transparency reporting in place for implementation.

And if acquiring Electronic Arts was a strategic move, then buying into the parent of household names such as CNN makes even more sense, Mr Hayek said.

“If Arab money is welcomed in sports, malls and ports around the world, what's the issue pouring it into CNN or Warner Bros Discovery?”

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For example, Saudi investments have increasingly gone into assets with brand adjacency and narrative reach, aligning with investments in global sporting events such as football, basketball, Formula One, tennis, golf, boxing and professional wrestling.

Those serve as a conduit to anchor the kingdom's tourism and entertainment sectors, which Saudi Arabia is heavily promoting back home.

The IP role

In conjunction, acquiring Warner Bros Discovery would grant access to an entire library of intellectual property, including recognised franchises such as Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Looney Tunes and the Marvel rival DC Comics.

The enduring durability of those franchises adds to the appeal of Warner Bros Discovery, which can also be viewed as a viable alternative asset amid highly volatile stock and commodities markets, thanks to persistent cash flows from their reboots, sequels, spin-offs, consumer products and live events.

“They offer visibility into long-term revenue across multiple windows,” said Ms Tsukerman, who is also the president of media advisory Scarab Rising. “For an investor focused on hedging oil price volatility, such IP strength represents a financial ballast with global monetisation potential,” she said.

And with streaming wars increasingly becoming geopolitical, having Saudi or Arab capital backing a major US studio would change the competitive landscape.

“It creates a hybrid: part Hollywood legacy, part sovereign-backed global content engine,” Mohammed Soliman, a director at Washington's Middle East Institute think tank, told The National.

“Even a minority stake gives Saudi Arabia exposure to some of the most valuable storytelling assets on Earth – and that’s not trivial: IP libraries become geopolitical tools [as] they travel, shape culture and influence how societies see themselves.”