Skydance employees brace for expected restructure as megamerger dust settles
Source: The Guardian ·
Battle far from over after Paramount and Warner Bros deal creates new global entertainment powerhouse“It feels like the calm before the storm,” says an executive at Skydance, the newly minted media empire formed from the megamerger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). “David has got what he wanted, but now there is a price to pay.”Earlier this month, David Ellison, Skydance’s chief…
From the source
“It feels like the calm before the storm,” says an executive at Skydance, the newly minted media empire formed from the megamerger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). “David has got what he wanted, but now there is a price to pay.” Earlier this month, David Ellison, Skydance’s chief executive, sealed the $110bn (£82bn) deal, creating a global powerhouse spanning two Hollywood studios each more than a century old, the TV networks HBO, MTV and Discovery, and news outlets CBS and CNN. Having seen off a rival bid from Netflix and faced significant political and industry opposition, in a process Ellison told employees was at times “downright ugly”, the battle is far from over for Hollywood’s newest magnate. With an aggressive target of reducing an eyewatering debt load of more than $80bn in just three years, it is what is going to be cut, sold and restructured that will be uppermost in the minds of Skydance’s more than 53,000 employees. Ellison, 43, who studied film and acted in…