David Ellison has put Skydance on the front of the Paramount and Warner Bros. deal, saying the combined company will use that name when the merger closes on Oct. 6. The move gives the new group a single corporate identity before trading shifts to the New York Stock Exchange that day.
Ellison said in a post on X Friday that the combined company will be a “creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling.” He also said, “We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one.”
Oct. 6 and the NYSE
The merger is set to close on Oct. 6 after a judge overseeing the 12-state antitrust lawsuit approved the settlement on Sept. 30. That cleared the last hurdle in a $111 billion transaction that combines two Hollywood movie studios, HBO Max and Paramount+, and TV businesses including CBS,, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central and Food Network.
On the same day, the company plans to move its Class B Common Stock from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange and begin trading under the ticker SKYD instead of PSKY. It also intends to amend its certificate of incorporation to change its name to Skydance Corporation.
Skydance, Paramount and Warner Bros.
Ellison said the company will not try to erase the brands that made the deal valuable in the first place. “Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture,” he wrote. “By combining them, we aren’t rewriting history — we’re equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative-first home for bold, quality storytelling.”
The strategy is straightforward: keep Paramount and Warner Bros. visible to audiences while using Skydance as the corporate umbrella. That lets the business carry one parent name into the market without forcing the studios, franchises and streaming services underneath it to disappear into a single label.
Ellison and Kreiz
Skydance will be led by chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz, who is the former Mattel chief and will join the company on Oct. 5. Ellison said, “We have big goals for Skydance, and we intend to pursue them with passion, imagination and a willingness to take smart risks.”
For investors, the immediate watchpoint is the Oct. 6 handoff: the name change, ticker change and NYSE debut all happen together. For everyone else inside the merged company, the signal is simpler — the studios keep their identities, but the balance sheet and the market-facing company name now belong to Skydance.
