Abu Dhabi’s L’imad among backers of Paramount’s hostile Warner Bros. bid in US

Dubai: Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Co., a firm wholly owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, is part of the group of Middle Eastern investors providing financing for Paramount Skydance Corp.’s offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., a US SEC regulatory filing showed.

L’imad, one of the Abu Dhabi’s newer state investment vehicles, expanded its visibility in recent months, emerging as the controlling shareholder of Modon Holding after purchasing major blocks of shares from IHC., according to UAE exchange disclosures. Its involvement in the Paramount Skydance financing marks an early move into international transactions as Abu Dhabi continues to broaden its investment platforms beyond its long-established sovereign funds.

The financing group includes Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority and Affinity Partners, the private equity firm founded by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.

Paramount’s tender offer lists “the Public Investment Fund (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), L’imad Holding Company PJSC (Abu Dhabi), Qatar Investment Authority (Qatar), and Affinity Partners (Jared Kushner)” as the outside investors that would participate through non-voting equity and forgo governance rights, including board seats, if the deal succeeds.

Axios and Bloomberg first reported the involvement of Saudi and Gulf investment.

Paramount said the way the investments are structured means the deal wouldn’t need a review by the U.S. foreign-investment watchdog, known as CFIUS. In practice, this is because the outside investors won’t get voting power or control, so the transaction doesn’t trigger U.S. national-security checks.

Analysts widely noted that Warner Bros. Discovery’s board selected Netflix’s competing offer partly because it did not involve foreign financing and therefore avoided potential CFIUS review. Tencent Holdings Ltd., which had earlier indicated support for the Paramount Skydance bid, is no longer part of the financing group, the filing said.

Paramount CEO David Ellison has signalled that the company may raise its offer, saying in an interview that the current $30-per-share proposal is not the final price. Both Paramount and Netflix are expected to continue adjusting their bids as the takeover battle intensifies.

Kushner’s firm has been a recurring participant in major deals involving Gulf capital. Affinity Partners joined Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s PIF this year in a $55 billion agreement to take Electronic Arts private, the largest private-equity buyout on record. Reporting has indicated Kushner helped establish early connections between Silver Lake and PIF leadership during discussions around that transaction.

The participation of L’imad Holding in the Paramount Skydance proposal highlights the growing role of Abu Dhabi’s new state-owned investment entities in global deals. While the emirate’s established sovereign wealth funds—ADIA, Mubadala and ADQ—continue to anchor the UAE’s international portfolio, newer vehicles such as L’imad, MGX, XRG and Lunate have broadened the government’s investment reach across emerging sectors and large-scale transactions.