Wall Street Skittish on Skydance as Stock Drops Further Post-Merger

It’s day two of David Ellison‘s Skydance Corp. merger gamble, and so far Wall Street isn’t eager to bet on it.

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Shares in the post-merger Skydance, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SKYD,” were down roughly 7% at close on Wednesday, ending the day at $8.89 a share. That was already down from the $9.51 per share price it closed at on Tuesday, when it dropped roughly 2.7% for the day. Ellison closed his $111 billion merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday morning before the market opened.

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Wall Street analysts remain worried about the company’s financial viability, even as Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz told reporters on Tuesday they had “a multiyear plan” to manage the roughly $80 billion in debt the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery entity now carries following the merger.

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TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a note Wednesday that investors should hold their shares of Skydance as the firm remained “quite cautious on the ability of the company and its management to avoid integration and execution problems that have bedeviled other major media mergers.”

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“The risks (leverage, integration) of the combination with WBD are high; we remain…

Original source: https://variety.com/

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