Business
Here’s what Paramount Skydance would be buying in a deal for Warner Bros. Discovery
Paramount+ signage in the Times Square neighborhood of New York, US, on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images
David Ellison looks to be buying up a media empire.
The CEO and chairman of the newly minted Paramount Skydance has tapped an investment bank to help prepare a takeout offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic dealings.
Warner Bros. Discovery had yet to receive an offer as of Thursday, according to people familiar. However, shares of the company soared almost 30% Thursday afternoon, notching the stock’s best day of trading on record.
Representatives for Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment.
Bringing Warner Bros. Discovery into the fold would add to Ellison’s growing list of franchise acquisitions and sports media rights. WBD, which announced in June it plans to separate into two entities, has a suite of desirable assets. Add those to Paramount’s collection of intellectual properties and Ellison could have a content behemoth on his hands.
“A bid for WBD would solidify the overlooked value of its portfolio of assets that was weighed down by its balance sheet,” Robert Fishman, analyst at MoffettNathanson, told CNBC Thursday.
A mountain of content
Already in house, Paramount boasts movies and television shows from franchises like Star Trek, Transformers, SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Paw Patrol, Scream and Mission Impossible.
More recently, it has expanded its video game-based IP beyond Sonic the Hedgehog, which is a billion-dollar franchise in its own right, to snag the rights to make a Call of Duty theatrical film and the distribution rights to Legendary’s Street Fighter adaptation.
Warner Bros. Discovery has a massive library of major franchises including DC superheroes, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter. It also has legacy cartoons like Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry. It is also the distributor of Legendary’s Dune franchise and Godzilla and King Kong films.
Last year, Warner Bros. was the second-highest grossing studio at the global box office and Paramount was the fifth-highest, according to data from Comscore.
In addition to bolstering Paramount’s theatrical slate, Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming service HBO Max counts more than 125 million subscribers as of the end of the second quarter. Paramount+ currently has around 77 million streaming users.
Chasing ESPN
In the wake of the Paramount-Skydance merger, Ellison also secured a $7.7 billion, seven-year deal to make Paramount the exclusive U.S. home for TKO Group’s UFC mixed martial arts organization. The agreement means UFC will stop its pay-per-view model and events will be available directly to Paramount+ subscribers and, in some cases, on CBS.
Sports rights are scarce and only become available when previous deals expire. Apple is already expected to be the home of Formula 1, and Major League Baseball is waiting until its deals expire after the 2028 season to reorganize its media packages. That means that Paramount will have few other top-shelf sports assets to bid on and acquire in the mid-term.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Discovery has the rights to broadcast games from the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and March Madness basketball along with the French Open and Nascar.
A potential tie-up between Paramount Skydance and WBD would exponentially expand Paramount’s library of intellectual property and an arsenal of sports content that could help it compete with Disney’s ESPN.
Business
Chipotle cuts same-store sales forecast for third straight quarter as diner visits drop again
A customer carries a Chipotle bag in San Francisco, California, US, on Friday, Jan. 31, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Chipotle Mexican Grill on Wednesday reported quarterly revenue that fell short of expectations and cut its same-store sales forecast for the third straight quarter.
Chipotle is expecting its full-year same-store sales to shrink by a low-single digit percentage in fiscal 2025. That’s a big change from February, when the burrito chain was projecting same-store sales would grow by a low- to mid-single digit percentage.
CEO Scott Boatwright said the company is seeing “consistent macroeconomic pressures.” Traffic fell by 0.8%, the third straight quarter of declines.
After the chain outperformed the broader restaurant industry in 2024, the sluggish consumer environment finally hit its restaurants this year. Chipotle’s customer base skews higher income, so it was insulated from the pullback in spending from low-income consumers that fast-food chains were reporting last year.
Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 29 cents adjusted, in line with expectations
- Revenue: $3 billion vs. $3.03 billion expected
Shares of the restaurant chain ticked slightly higher in extended trading.
Chipotle reported third-quarter net income of $382.1 million, or 29 cents per share, down from $387.4 million, or 28 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding slight adjustments for stock-based compensation grants and other items, the burrito chain still earned 29 cents per share.
Net sales rose 7.5% to $3 billion, fueled by new restaurants. The company opened 84 company-operated locations and two licensed international stores.
Chipotle’s same-store sales increased 0.3% in a reversal from last quarter’s decline. But the growth in sales at restaurants open at least a year came from a 1.1% bump in average check, as traffic dipped.
To revive traffic growth, Chipotle is focusing on its in-restaurant execution, marketing, digital experience and menu innovation, according to Boatwright.
Looking to 2026, Chipotle anticipates that it will open 350 to 370 new locations. That target includes 10 to 15 international restaurants operated by partners, as the company aims to expand globally.
Last month, Chipotle announced a joint venture with SPC Group, a Korea-based restaurant operator. It has also signed development deals with operators in the Middle East and Latin America.
Last Updated:
US Fed Meeting Outcome: In a second consecutive rate cut, the US Federal Reserve on October 29 reduced its key interest rates by another 25 basis points (bps) to 3.75%-4.00%.
US Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate decision.
US Fed Rate Cut, US Fed Meeting Latest News: The US Federal Reserve on October 29 reduced its key interest rates by another 25 basis points (bps) to 3.75%-4.00%, in line with market expectations. This is the second consecutive rate cut following the last reduction in September 2025, when the US central bank announced a similar 25 bps reduction after a gap of nine months.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) approved the rate cut with a 10-2 majority. Governor Stephen Miran dissented, arguing for a steeper half-point reduction, while Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid also voted against the move, favouring no rate cut at all.
“In support of its goals and in light of the shift in the balance of risks, the Committee decided to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent,” the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) said in a statement on October 29.
It added that uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated. The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate and judges that downside risks to employment rose in recent months.
“Available indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace. Job gains have slowed this year, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remained low through August; more recent indicators are consistent with these developments. Inflation has moved up since earlier in the year and remains somewhat elevated,” the FOMC stated.
US Fed to Halt Quantitative Tightening from December 1
Alongside the rate cut, the Federal Reserve announced that it will end the reduction of its asset holdings, a process known as quantitative tightening, effective December 1.
The post-meeting statement did not provide any direction on what the committee’s plans are for December.
The next US Fed meeting will take place on December 9-10, and the decision will be announced on December 10.
In September, the US central bank’s officials expected two more cuts this year, according to the ‘dot plot’.
The Fed had reduced borrowing costs three times last year till December 2024. But, it then put any further cuts on hold to evaluate the impact of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on the economy. The US central bank kept its key interest rates unchanged at 4.25%-4.50% for five times in a row till the previous July 2025 policy review.
Currently, CPI inflation in the US stands at 3%, which was cooler than expected by most analysts. The US Fed targets to bring in the retail inflation rate at 2%.
US Fed Rate Cut: How Will It Impact Indian Markets?
Currently, the Nifty futures (GIFT Nifty) are trading nearly 90 points lower at 26,166, suggesting a gap-down opening on Thursday.
For Indian markets, the US Fed rate cut is positive for sectors like IT, pharma, and other export-oriented industries.
Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to personal finance, markets, economy and companies. Having over a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris h…Read More
Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to personal finance, markets, economy and companies. Having over a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris h… Read More
October 29, 2025, 23:32 IST
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Business
Nvidia Becomes $5 Trillion Powerhouse, Adding $7.6 Billion To Jensen Huang’s Net Worth In A Day
New Delhi: Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang has seen his personal fortune soar past USD 180 billion (Rs 15 lakh crore), following a record-breaking rally in Nvidia’s stock that pushed the company’s market valuation to nearly $5 trillion (Rs 415 lakh crore). This milestone makes Nvidia one of the most valuable companies in the world, surpassing even major tech giants like Amazon and Alphabet in market capitalization.
According to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires Index, Huang’s wealth jumped by over USD 7.6 billion in a single day, rising 4.35 percent to around USD 182 billion. The sharp increase came after Nvidia’s shares surged to a new high of USD 212.19 on Nasdaq, driven by booming demand for its AI processors. Nvidia’s chips — including the H100 and Blackwell series — are now at the heart of global artificial intelligence systems used by companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google.
Founded by Huang in 1993, Nvidia began as a small graphics card manufacturer. Today, it dominates the AI chip market, controlling more than 80 percent of the global GPU supply for data centers and machine learning models. The company’s meteoric rise has made Huang one of the fastest-growing billionaires in the world — and a key figure in the global AI race.
Nvidia’s success has also made it the first Nasdaq-listed firm to cross the USD 5 trillion mark, a feat achieved just months after it breached the USD 4 trillion level. Analysts say the company’s growth reflects how AI has reshaped the global technology industry, with investors betting that Nvidia’s dominance will continue as demand for AI hardware skyrockets.
Huang’s rise underscores how artificial intelligence is not only transforming technology but also rewriting the global billionaire rankings — with Nvidia’s visionary CEO now among the world’s richest individuals.
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