> Paramount is dead?

Paramount broke its tradition of barely treading water [1] in 2023 by booking multibillion cable losses [2] before being acquired in a de facto LBO [3] at half the price it traded at in 2005 [4]. (90% off its 2021 peak, though that may have been meme-y.)

Paramount Skydance–the one bidding for Warner–has $15bn of debt on $600mm operating cash flow supporting $15bn of equity trading above book value while still posting losses [5].

It's not dead. But it's at least necrotic.

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/cbs:us:net-income

[2] https://www.filmtake.com/distribution/paramounts-financial-t...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Skydance

[4] https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/para/history/

[5] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PSKY/key-statistics/

How does one learn to think about companies buying each other. It’s counterintuitive to me for an entity with stock to buy stock in another entity which could itself own stock in the first.

The way you write it I can’t see why WB would be allowed to sell itself when it makes the most sense for Patamount to go bankrupt some time from now and be split up amongst US media; Netflix/HBO/Disney/Peacock