On Monday we flagged that September was shaping up as the worst month for junk since 2022. We also noted that Paramount's $12.4 billion high-yield tranche would be bigger than SoftBank's recently issued record $11 billion junk deal. The next morning the company kicked off the high-grade portion. By Tuesday afternoon it reported $109 billion of demand.
With so much excess demand, the offering was supposed to fly off the shelves. It did not: the deal priced on Wednesday, the same day a judge accepted the states' settlement and the merger was scheduled to close on Oct. 6. It is the biggest takeover financing Hollywood has seen, for the biggest Hollywood buyout ever. Paramount won Warner Bros. from Netflix back in February.
While underwriters usually leave a little on the table for new-issue buyers, they didn't this time, and all the new issues faceplanted the moment they broke for trading.
What was sold
Here is the full stack from the company's pricing release. The $52 billion package has three parts:
