Paramount discusses $1.5 billion California investment to help clear Warner Bros. Discovery deal
California's attorney general is trying to settle with Paramount while New York's Letitia James pushes for added worker protections.
Published
Paramount is discussing a $1.5 billion investment in California as part of an effort to clear its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, according to the Wall Street Journal.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is trying to reach a settlement with Paramount. Bonta had led a coalition of a dozen state attorneys general suing to block Paramount's roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing the deal would give Paramount unlawful market power over theatrical films and basic cable programming, the Washington Times reported. A judge has scheduled a trial in that case for March 2027, Variety reported.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is resisting the settlement terms discussed between Paramount and California, pushing for added worker protections. Paramount chief executive David Ellison had threatened to move the studio to Texas, Tennessee or Georgia if settlement talks were not underway by October 1, when a $7 million-a-day fee owed to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders begins accruing, the Washington Times reported.
The California pledge addresses one obstacle Paramount faces with regulators, but it does not change the deal's underlying position. New York's opposition remains the binding constraint on the merger, and a spending commitment in California alone is unlikely to shift either state's stance without a broader restructuring of the deal.