According to a report from Axios, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav (WBD) met with Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish (PARA) on Tuesday about a potential merger between the two media giants. Zaslav has also spoken to Shari Redstone, who owns Paramount’s parent company, about a potential deal. It was widely expected that Paramount may do some sort of deal, with Wells Fargo upgrading the company’s shares on Wednesday on that prospect.
William Cohan, Puck News Founding Partner, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss what a potential deal would look like between both companies and what the aftermath might look like. Cohan says if the two companies were to merge, they would create a “behemoth with an awful lot of debt. There’s no question about it”
In terms of how easy or difficult it might be for a deal Cohan says: “It wouldn’t be hard for, say, Apple (AAPL) to buy Paramount. It would be a chip shot. For Warner Bros. Discovery, with its $43 billion in debt, and Paramount’s $15 billion in debt, and the overlap in terms of business lines, it’s going to be difficult, strategically and regulatorily, to get this through. But David Zaslav is nothing if not ambitious. He clearly doesn’t think he’s done yet in Hollywood. He wants more in Hollywood.”
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