Shareholders Of AEW Parent Company WBD Approve Sale To Paramount Skydance

Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders met to vote and approve the sale of the company to Paramount Skydance on Thursday, a date previously reported by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer. A new report by Variety revealed that the shareholders greenlit the deal, to the tune of $111 billion, for Paramount to acquire WBD.

According to Variety, the virtual meeting lasted just 10 minutes and shareholders voted “overwhelmingly” in favor of the deal. As previously reported, shareholders will get $31 per share in cash in the sale, though shareholders must have owned their shares of stock as of March 20.

Investors did not vote in favor of the large compensation packages CEO David Zaslav and other top executives are expected to receive. Despite shareholder unhappiness, the vote is non-binding, as Warner Bros. can go ahead with its planned payouts for Zaslav and others. According to Variety, the CEO is set to receive a severance of $34.2 million, with $517.2 million in equity, and more payouts for things like continued health coverage reimbursement, as well as shares he still owns.

Paramount put forth the offer at the end of February, after the sale of Warner Bros. to Netflix looked as though it were a done deal. Netflix redrew its bid after the Paramount offer was seen as superior. The news of the sale drew headlines in the wrestling world almost immediately, due to WWE’s involvement with Netflix and the fact Warner Bros. Discovery is a parent company of AEW.

Paramount is reportedly set to take over WBD’s stake small stake in AEW, which was made public throughout the sale process. As for streaming services, it was also revealed HBO Max and Paramount+ will be combined into one service. While AEW streams on Max, the TKO-owned UFC streams exclusively on Paramount+. It’s still unclear how things will proceed when the sale is final.

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