Skydance Begins Trading on NYSE With an $80 Billion Debt Load
Skydance Corp. started trading on the New York Stock Exchange on October 6 after its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closed, leaving the new media giant carrying roughly $80 billion in pro forma long-term debt and setting debt reduction as CEO David Ellison's most pressing task.
The $110 billion merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery is now complete, with the combined company trading as Skydance Corp. (NYSE: SKYD) after WBD was pulled from the NASDAQ. SKYD shares began trading on October 6. The deal was hard-fought: Netflix originally agreed to buy WBD at $27.75 per share, but Paramount topped it with a hostile bid of $30 per share, eventually raising the offer to $31 per share plus a daily ticking fee of 25 cents per share per quarter and a $2.8 billion breakup fee to Netflix. A lawsuit by 12 state attorneys general was settled in September, with Skydance agreeing to invest at least $300 million annually in domestic film production and release at least 30 theatrical films per year for two years. The new conglomerate controls Paramount and Warner Bros. film and TV studios, CBS, HBO, CNN, TNT Sports, Paramount+, and cable networks including Nickelodeon, Showtime, BET, and Comedy Central, along with major franchises such as DC, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Star Trek. The balance sheet, however, is the dominant story: the company carries roughly $80 billion in pro forma long-term debt against a cash position of $7.9 billion, with interest expenses of $3.1 billion in the first half of 2026 alone. Ellison has cited $6 billion in run-rate cost savings and a 4.3x leverage estimate, targeting $10 billion in free cash flow by 2030 and 3.0 net leverage by end of 2029. Meanwhile, media advertising revenue fell 14% year over year in Q2 2026, making streaming profitability equally critical.
