If regulators clear it, one of the largest mergers in history will hand billionaire Larry Ellison and his son David unprecedented sway over American media—CBS and CNN under one roof, HBO Max and Paramount fused, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures sharing a parent. That’s on top of the tech and real estate empire the elder Ellison—Oracle’s chief technology officer, President Donald Trump’s new neighbor and the world’s sixth-richest person—already controls.

Last August, the Ellisons took control of Paramount in an $8 billion merger with Skydance, the entertainment company run by David and owned mostly by Larry. Weeks later, Paramount Skydance lobbed a hostile $111 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, which had already agreed to sell itself to Netflix. Netflix declined to counter. Warner’s board deemed Paramount’s offer superior. The Ellison-controlled entity is now in pole position to buy a company with a roughly $70 billion market cap—for a triple-digit billion price.

Here’s the problem: Paramount has just $3 billion in cash on its balance sheet.

To bridge the gap, three big banks are committing $57.5 billion in debt. Most of the rest—a $45.7 billion equity commitment—is coming from Larry Ellison’s trust. And that's where the math starts to get tight.........

© Forbes