Paramount, Bankers Use Every Tool to Sell $50 Billion LBO Debt for Warner Bros. Deal

Paramount Skydance Corp. and its banks are aggressively marketing a $50 billion debt package to fund the $110 billion leveraged buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., stretching market conventions to secure the mammoth financing. A JPMorgan Chase-led group refinanced a $15 billion bridge loan with a term loan B that drew over $30 billion in investor orders, becoming the largest such deal on record. Paramount is urgently seeking investment-grade ratings on portions of its debt to contain borrowing costs. CEO David Ellison privately assured rating firms the Ellison family would inject additional capital if needed. S&P Global pushed for that pledge to be made public, and it was disclosed in a filing last week. The debt sale, tentatively split into $30 billion of high-grade bonds, $12 billion in high-yield notes and $7.5 billion in loans, is a critical test of credit-market appetite. Strong demand for leveraged loans and scarce supply has buoyed confidence, with investors indicating that well-structured BB-rated loans would be quickly absorbed.