Paramount’s High-Stakes FCC Pitch: Nearly Half Foreign-Owned in $110 Billion Warner Bros. Takeover

Paramount Skydance filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission on April 27, seeking a declaratory ruling to permit nearly half its equity—49.5%—to be held by foreign investors after swallowing Warner Bros. Discovery in a $110 billion deal. The filing lays bare the stakes. Three Gulf sovereign wealth funds dominate that slice, injecting $24 billion for 38.5% combined equity: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund at 15.1%, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund at 12.8%, and Qatar Investment Authority at 10.6%. Variety first detailed the breakdown. Paramount insists these backers hold non-voting Class B shares. No board seats. No control.

David Ellison’s outfit, backed by his father Larry’s Oracle fortune and RedBird Capital, retains voting power through Class A shares. The Ellisons own 77.5% of those, RedBird the rest. That’s the pitch to regulators: capital without strings. The funds’ cash will fund “greater access to capital,” letting the giant compete in broadcasts and video, per the FCC document. Deadline flagged the 49.5% figure first.

But. CBS owns 28 local TV stations. Add CNN under the Warner roof. News arms matter. Foreign equity this deep tests FCC limits, which cap it at 25% absent waivers. Paramount wants approval now—and flexibility for investors to hike stakes to 20% later. The agency accepted the petition for review April 27. Closing? Eyed for September. Miss September 30, and Warner shareholders get ticking fees.

This isn’t routine, despite Paramount’s spin. The merger cleared most hurdles—DOJ, EU nods. State AGs eye antitrust suits, buoyed by wins over Live Nation and Nexstar. Netflix, outbid after eyeing Paramount’s studios, hammered the foreign angle hard. Now it’s Paramount chasing the whole Warner prize.

Foreign Funds Reshape Hollywood’s Power Map

Gulf money floods media. Saudi PIF alone poured billions into Lucasfilm, Endeavor. Qatar owns chunks of Miramax. Abu Dhabi eyes sports rights. Here, it’s scale. $24 billion buys heft in a streaming bloodbath. Paramount+ and Max merge into a 130 million sub behemoth. Studios unite. But critics whisper influence. Passive? Sure. Yet CBS Evening News and CNN side-by-side. Saudi leads the pack. Tensions simmer.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr got a Paramount dinner invite honoring President Trump. He dodged attendance questions. Timing sharp—post-White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting. Politics hover. Reuters notes the filing seeks to exceed benchmarks without control transfer. Reuters. Bloomberg calls it blessing foreign funding. Bloomberg.

Deal timeline: Announced February 27. Warner shareholders approved April 23. Wall Street Journal pegs Warner value at $81 billion in spots, but filings stick to $110 billion total. Paramount’s Makan Delrahim signed the petition. Hollywood Reporter.

X buzzes. Users decry Saudi sway over U.S. news. One post: “Why allow ANY outside ownership of mass media?” Deadline’s tweet drew 228 likes. Pop Base broke stakes visually, 124k views. Concerns real. Approval not required for close, Paramount says. But broadcast licenses demand it long-term.

Scale the prize. Combined: CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Warner films, HBO, DC. NFL deals lock. Streaming wars rage—Disney, Netflix loom. Cash infusion fights back. Foreign equity precedents exist; FCC waived for Sinclair, others. Gulf funds waived governance rights, dodging CFIUS deeper probe. Wikipedia tracks it all.

Risks? Antitrust. States mull. Geopolitics. Gulf ties volatile. Approval odds? Carr’s commission leans pro-business. But news sensitivity bites. Paramount bets on passive label. Watch the docket. September looms. Hollywood holds breath.

Fragment. Stakes high.