Paramount can “afford” Warner Bros. Discovery because the proposed deal is not being paid out of its own cash balance, but through a large, externally financed takeover structure backed by wealthy investors and sovereign wealth funds, plus significant planned cost savings after the merger.

Size of the offer

Paramount Skydance has launched an all‑cash tender offer of about 303030 dollars per share for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, valuing the deal at roughly 108108108 billion dollars including debt. This is larger than Netflix’s competing transaction for Warner Bros., which is valued around 828282–838383 billion dollars with a mix of cash and stock.

Where the money comes from

Most of the funding comes from outside investors rather than Paramount’s existing balance sheet. Key pieces include:

• Equity commitments of about 404040–414141 billion dollars from the Ellison family (Larry Ellison and David Ellison) and private investment firm RedBird Capital.

• Tens of billions in debt and additional capital from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds (Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar) and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, with those funds agreeing to be purely financial backers without governance rights to ease U.S. regulatory concerns.

How the deal structure helps

Because it is a tender offer directly to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders, Paramount does not need to have 108108108 billion dollars in cash on hand today; it needs credible committed financing that closes at settlement. Regulatory filings indicate that all equity financing is fully committed, and the remainder would be covered by debt arranged with lenders and the sponsoring investors.

Making the numbers work long term

Paramount is pitching the merger as financially viable because of projected cost “synergies” of more than 666 billion dollars per year on top of its own existing cost‑cut programs. Those savings would come from consolidating overlapping operations (like marketing, back‑office, and technology) across the combined studios and streaming platforms, and are intended to help service the heavy debt used to fund the acquisition.