David Zaslav Cashes In: WBD CEO Scores Massive Merger Windfall
David Zaslav, ex-CEO of the former Warner Bros. Discovery saw a windfall of just over $600 million as he handed over his WBD shares to Paramount at $31 each.
An SEC filing today shows the Oct. 6 exchange of tranches of common stock and options as Paramount closed its acquisition of WBD and changed its name to Skydance. The merger, unveiled in February and valued at $110 billion, called for Paramount to acquire all of WBD’s outstanding shares at $31. Zaslav’s stock options vested immediately as the deal closed.
Executives and board members of WBD are required to register the stock sales and the numbers are high. Zaslav and the Warner board drove a hard bargain, rejecting series of takeover offers by David Ellison that started at $18 a share in cash with the offer propelled ever higher by a determined Skydance CEO David Ellison.
Paramount offered other sweeteners as well, including a so-called ticking fee of about $7 million a day to be distributed to WBD shareholders and kicking in Oct. 1 if the deal hadn’t closed (Paramount had to pay through Oct. 6) and Larry Ellison backstopping all of the equity financing.
A spokesman for the company noted that Zaslav had doubled the number of WBD employees who held equity in merged Discovery and Warner Media, so they are also benefitting from the Paramount takeover.
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