Paramount seeks FCC approval for foreign investors backing Warner Bros acquisition

PARAMOUNT Skydance has asked the US Federal Communications Commission to greenlight foreign investments backing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to regulatory filings made public on Monday.

A Paramount spokesperson said the filing is completely standard for investments such as the ones at issue and is not a condition to closing Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. FCC rules govern foreign investments in US television broadcasting.

Current and expected foreign investors will own slightly less than 50 percent of Paramount’s equity after the investments, but the family of Paramount CEO David Ellison will continue to control voting shares, the company said in its filing.

Paramount said last year that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Abu Dhabi-based L’imad Holding Co, and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) had agreed to back its proposed takeover of Warner Bros.

The company said the approval would reduce barriers to further investment, enabling Paramount to seek additional capital from non-US investors.

Paramount added that the move would help expand the reach of its television broadcast operations and said the new equity investment and anticipated efficiency gains from the Paramount-Skydance transaction “will better position the company to weather continuing challenges facing broadcasters and operators of linear pay-television networks.”

In July last year, the FCC approved Paramount’s tie-up with Skydance Media.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told Reuters in a recent interview that the commission’s role would be minor in the Paramount-Warner deal.

“What we’ve seen so far is that the foreign ownership they’re taking would qualify, under our rules, as bona fide debt,” Carr said.