Warner Bros suitor Larry Ellison takes €36.5bn hit
The billionaire businessman seeking to gatecrash Netflix’s takeover of Warner Bros yesterday saw as much as €36.5bn wiped off his fortune as shares in his own firm plunged, writes John-Paul Ford Rojas.
Larry Ellison, a Trump ally and the world’s second-richest man, took a hit as Oracle slumped after its latest results.
Ellison is backing a hostile €108bn bid by Paramount Skydance for Warner Bros – even though Warner has already accepted a €72bn offer from streaming giant Netflix.
The Netflix deal threatens to upend the old Hollywood order dominated by its century-old film studios – and has gripped Wall Street.
But yesterday it was Oracle, where Ellison made his fortune, that seized the attention of traders.
Ellison, a friend of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, owns just over 40pc of the software firm, which has benefited from the cloud computing boom.
Its fortunes have been supercharged by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), including a €250bn deal with ChatGPT maker OpenAI for data centres – sites that will be needed to power AI processing.
The industry says huge spending is needed to support the roll-out of a technology they say will transform business and society.
But now some investors are fretting about Oracle’s debt-fuelled investment.
In results published late on Wednesday, it said annual spending was set to be €12.5bn higher than previously estimated.
It also missed Wall Street estimates for its third-quarter revenue growth forecast and on figures related to future cloud contracts.
It comes as doubts grow about the mania for AI stocks.
The Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund have drawn comparisons with the ‘dotcom’ bubble, which hit internet stocks 25 years ago.
Last night, Oracle’s shares fell 10.8pc. Among other AI-related stocks, chipmaker Nvidia dipped 1.6pc and Arm Holdings fell 3.8pc.
Ellison’s fortune, estimated at more than €230bn prior to the sell-off, is primarily derived from his stake in Oracle. His family, together with private equity firm Redbird Capital, owns Paramount Skydance, which includes TV brands such as Britain’s Channel 5 and the Hollywood film studio behind hits such as The Godfather.
Last week, Paramount was snubbed after a bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery – maker of films such as Batman and TV series such as Game of Thrones via its HBO business.
Instead, Warner said it had agreed a €72bn deal with Netflix, the streamer behind Squid Game and Bridgerton and whose business model has shaken up the industry.
The Netflix deal threatens to upend the old Hollywood order dominated by its century-old film studios – and has gripped Wall Street. (Photo by Didem Mente/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Paramount on Monday went public with its rejected offer, going directly to shareholders and over the head of Warner’s board.
It is seeking to sow doubts about Netflix’s ability to secure approval from regulators, saying shareholders face a ‘protracted’ clearance process.
Paramount’s offer includes financing from Affinity Partners, run by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son in-law, and state-backed Saudi, Qatari and Abu Dhabi funds.
Photo: Oracle co-founder, CTO and Executive Chairman Larry Ellison. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
