Battle For Warner Bros: Oracle's Larry Ellison To Personally Back Paramount Bid With $40 Billion Pledge

Paramount Skydance Corp. sweetened its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., including offering a personal financial guarantee by Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison, as it seeks to beat out a rival bid from Netflix Inc. 

Ellison has agreed to personally guarantee $40.4 billion in equity financing for Paramount’s proposed $108.4 billion offer for Warner Bros., according to a statement Monday. Ellison, whose son David Ellison is chief executive officer of Paramount, agreed not to revoke the Ellison family trust.

Paramount confirmed that the Ellison family trust owns about 1.16 billion shares of Oracle common stock and that all material liabilities of the Ellison family trust are publicly disclosed.

"In an effort to address Warner Bros.'s amorphous need for 'flexibility' in interim operations, Paramount's revised proposed merger agreement offers further improved flexibility to Warner Bros. on debt refinancing transactions, representations and interim operating covenants," Paramount said in its statement.

Paramount also offered will increase its regulatory reverse termination fee from $5 billion to $5.8 billion.