On 6 October 2026, Paramount Skydance completed its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of the Warner Bros. studio and HBO. Warner shareholders received just over $31 a share in cash. The Associated Press valued the deal at about $81 billion for the shares, or nearly $111 billion including Warner’s debt. The combined company is now called Skydance. Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SKYD, and David Ellison is chairman and chief executive.
It is also a story about one family’s balance sheet. David’s father, Larry Ellison, co-founded Oracle and is its largest shareholder. Eleven days before the deal closed, Oracle disclosed that he had pledged 413 million Oracle shares as security for personal loans. Oracle and Skydance are separate companies, but both rest on the same fortune.
How the deal was paid for
Skydance raised $47 billion of new equity by selling shares at $12 each, according to the company. The investors it named include the Ellison family, RedBird Capital Partners, LionTree and state funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Bloomberg, working from public filings, estimated that the Ellisons bought about 1.4 billion of those shares, roughly $17 billion. It reported that the three Gulf funds were due to contribute about $24 billion, RedBird $4 billion and the South Korean retailer Shinsegae $1 billion. That followed roughly $8 billion the Ellisons and RedBird spent to take control of Paramount in 2025.
The rest was borrowed. The combined company is expected to owe about $80 billion. S&P Global Ratings gave it a BB rating, below investment grade, and expects its debt to stay at about 7.6 times a year’s operating earnings through 2027.
Who controls the company
Skydance has two classes of stock. The new investors bought Class B shares, which carry no votes. All the voting Class A shares belong to a company called Harbor Lights Entertainment, in which entities controlled by the Ellison family hold about a 77.5% interest, according to a filing with the SEC on 5 October. The Gulf funds, which AP said could indirectly own close to half of the equity, get no say. Our holding structures post explains how votes and value can be split.
Larry Ellison also stood behind the bid in person. In December 2025, during a bidding contest with Netflix, he gave an “irrevocable personal guarantee” for $40.4 billion of the equity financing, AP reported. On 8 October, Bloomberg noted that the exact source of the Ellisons’ money is not known.
What a share pledge is
A share pledge is a loan secured by shares, much like a mortgage secured by a house. The owner keeps the shares, the votes and the dividends. The lender gets a claim on the shares if the loan is not repaid. If the share price falls too far, the borrower usually must add collateral or repay part of the loan, or the lender may sell shares.
Why borrow instead of selling? A sale can trigger capital gains tax, shrink the founder’s stake and votes, and unsettle other investors. A loan avoids all three, but ties the debt to the share price.
Oracle’s proxy statement, filed on 25 September 2026, says that as of 21 September Larry Ellison had pledged 413 million shares to secure personal debt. The previous year’s proxy showed 346 million. The increase of 67 million shares was worth about $9.2 billion at that day’s closing price of $137.10, Bloomberg calculated. All 413 million shares were worth roughly $57 billion, about 36% of his holding by press estimates.
The proxy says the shares secure term loans used only for outside personal business ventures, that none sit in margin accounts, and that Ellison can repay without selling them. Oracle bans pledging for every employee and director except him, and a board committee reviews his pledges each quarter. The filing does not say which ventures the loans fund, and we found no filing that links them directly to Skydance.
Why companies must disclose pledges
Since 2006, U.S. rules have required public companies to show how many of the shares held by directors and top executives are pledged. A forced sale of a large block can push down the price for every shareholder and can even shift control. In August 2024, Carl Icahn and Icahn Enterprises settled SEC charges over how they had disclosed his pledges, paying $500,000 and $1.5 million. When the company first reported them, in its annual report for 2021, about 57% of its units were pledged.
The concentration lesson
Oracle’s shares have been volatile. On 11 September, Oracle disclosed that Ellison had set up a plan in June to sell up to 50 million shares; the next day it said he had cancelled it without selling any, Reuters reported. By then the stock was down nearly 23% for the year. Pledged loans make a falling price matter twice: for the value of the fortune and for the collateral behind the debt.
The family now holds two large, concentrated positions: an Oracle stake, partly pledged, and voting control of a heavily indebted media company. Neither is in trouble today. But if both fell at once, the family’s room to support either would shrink. That is concentration risk, which we covered in five common mistakes.
A fair caveat
Larry Ellison is one of the richest people in the world, and Oracle says he can repay his loans without selling pledged shares. Skydance’s debt belongs to the company, not to the family. The $17 billion figure is Bloomberg’s estimate from filings. Pledging is legal, common among founders, and disclosed.
Five lessons to take away
- Borrowing against shares is not free money. The loan stays tied to the share price.
- Disclosure exists for a reason. A pledged block can turn into a forced sale that hurts every shareholder.
- Control and ownership can be separated. Skydance’s new investors hold value without votes.
- One fortune can carry two bets. When a family backs a new venture with its main asset, the risks become linked.
- Ask what happens if both fall at once. Test the whole balance sheet, not each piece alone.
Questions to bring to your advisors
Do we borrow against our main holding, and at what share price would the lender ask for more collateral? Have we guaranteed anyone else’s deal, including a family member’s business? How much of our net worth depends on one company? These are questions to bring to your advisors, not advice.