Skydance’s High-Wire Act Begins: Wall Street Scrutinizes Strategy for Juggling $80 Billion in Debt and a Three-Year Runway to Chop it Down

By Cynthia Littleton

Cynthia Littleton

Business Editor

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David Ellison moved mountains and fought off many detractors in his quest to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Now, as the transition is set to formally close on Oct. 6, the high-wire act is about to begin.

The enlarged entity, to be known as Skydance, will carry a nearly unprecedented level of debt for a large media M&A transaction — a nearly $80 billion chunk — and that leverage will weigh on virtually every decision the company makes over the next three years. By comparison, when Discovery bought WarnerMedia from AT&T, it assumed $43 billion of AT&T’s debt, leaving the new WBD with about $53 billion in gross debt as of June 2022.

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