Paramount Dealmaker Says Warner Merger Is About Growth, Not Cuts

Christopher Palmeri Gerry Cardinale, the founder of the investment firm Red Bird Capital Partners and one of the architects of Paramount Skydance Corp.’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., said the performance of the combined companies will impress investors. "I think you’ll be surprised," Cardinale said Thursday at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles. "I think we’re going to show a trajectory of real meaningful growth." Cardinale said that while there will be cost-cutting and people that end up in new positions, that is not the reason behind the big merger, which will put two of the industry’s most famous film studios under one corporate umbrella. A company wouldn’t spend billions of dollars a year making movies, "and figure your entire premise of your business plan is to fire everybody in Hollywood," Cardinale said. "It’s just the opposite."

The 58-year-old former Goldman Sachs Group investment banker has been behind some of the biggest deals in the media industry in recent years. Cardinale negotiated and helped finance Skydance Media’s takeover of Paramount Global last year and immediately began backing Skydance founder David Ellison’s next bid, the $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. That bruising battle dragged on for months. Paramount initially lost the fight to Netflix Inc. before coming back with a superior offer in February. Paramount looks to be on track to close the deal on Oct. 6, after negotiating a settlement with 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild trade union, which had tried block the merger in court. Cardinale bristled at the idea that the close relationship the Ellison family has with President Donald Trump is what tipped the scale in the mega-merger winning approved by federal regulators. "This coziness with Trump thing is, you know, it’s way overstated," Cardinale said. "Anybody in corporate America should have a relationship with that administration, and that’s not because it’s Trump, right? Trump is pro-business. He’s very interested in the technology community."

Other Red Bird deals this year included an investment in newsletter and podcaster Puck, and the merger of European TV producers Banijay Entertainment and ALL3Media, a deal financed though its Red Bird IMI joint venture with Abu Dhabi based-IMI media group.

克里斯托弗·帕尔默里·杰里·卡迪纳勒，红鸟资本合伙人（Red Bird Capital Partners）的创始人以及派拉蒙斯凯登公司（Paramount Skydance Corp.）收购华纳兄弟发现公司（Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.）的主要设计师之一，表示认为合并后公司的表现将给投资者留下深刻印象。“我想你们会感到惊讶，”卡迪纳勒在洛杉矶举行的彭博屏幕时代会议上周四表示。“我认为我们将展示出真正有意义的增长轨迹。”卡迪纳勒表示，尽管会有裁员和人员调整的情况，但这并不是这次大型合并的主要原因，这次合并将把行业中最著名的两家电影工作室合并到一个公司伞下。“一家公司每年花费数十亿美元制作电影，却得出结论你的整个商业计划的前提是要解雇好莱坞所有的人，这是荒谬的，”卡迪纳勒说。“恰恰相反。”

这位年龄58岁的前高盛集团投资银行家在近年来媒体行业中推动了一些重大的交易。卡迪纳勒协商并帮助融资斯凯登媒体（Skydance Media）去年对派拉蒙环球（Paramount Global）的收购，并立即开始支持斯凯登创始人大卫·埃尔逊（David Ellison）的下一笔报价，即1100亿美元收购华纳兄弟。那场艰苦的斗争持续了数月。派拉蒙最初在与网飞公司（Netflix Inc.）的竞争中失败，但在2月份提出了更优的报价。派拉蒙似乎正有望在10月6日完成交易，此前与12个州的检察长和曾试图在法院阻止合并的编剧工会达成了和解协议。卡迪纳勒对埃尔逊家族与唐纳德·特朗普总统关系密切这一观点表示不满。“这种与特朗普的亲近关系，你知道，这被高估了，”卡迪纳勒说。“在美国企业界的任何人都应该与那个政府建立关系，这不是因为特朗普，对吧？特朗普是亲商业的。他对科技界非常感兴趣。”

今年红鸟的其他交易包括对时事通讯和播客人物普克（Puck）的投资，以及欧洲电视制片商班伊加娱乐（Banijay Entertainment）和全三媒体（ALL3Media）的合并，这笔交易通过其与阿布扎比基于IMI媒体集团的红鸟IMI合资公司融资。

关键实体：公司：红鸟资本合伙人，派拉蒙斯凯登公司，华纳兄弟发现公司，彭博市场，高盛集团，斯凯登媒体，派拉蒙环球，大卫·埃尔逊，网飞公司，普克，班伊加娱乐，全三媒体，红鸟IMI，阿布扎比基于IMI媒体集团 | 人物：克里斯托弗·帕尔默里·杰里·卡迪纳勒，大卫·埃尔逊，唐纳德·特朗普 | 地点：洛杉矶，洛杉矶

问：这次合并主要是关于增长还是裁剪？

答：这次合并是关于增长，而不是裁剪。