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NEW YORK (AP) — Skydance and Paramount officially closed their $8 billion merger on Thursday — kicking off the reign of a new entertainment giant after a contentious, over year-long endeavor to get the transaction over the finish line. The new company — which will trade under the “PSKY” ticker on Wall Street — brings Paramount’s legacy Hollywood footprint, major TV networks like CBS and MTV, streaming services and more under the roof of a new power player: billionaire Skydance founder David Ellison. “Today marks an exciting and pivotal moment as we prepare to bring Paramount’s legacy as a Hollywood...

Union Pacific wants to buy Norfolk Southern in a $85 billion deal that would create the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S, and potentially trigger a final wave of rail mergers across the country. The proposed merger, announced Tuesday, would marry Union Pacific’s vast rail network in the West with Norfolk’s rails that snake across the Eastern United States. The combined railroad would include more than 50,000 miles of track in 43 states with connections to major ports on both coasts. The nation was first linked by rail in 1869, when a golden railroad spike was driven in Utah to...

Stephen Colbert declared to Donald Trump that “the gloves are off” in his first broadcast since his Late Show was cancelled amid a political firestorm, as his fellow hosts lined up to defend him with Jon Stewart scathingly denouncing Paramount for trying to “censor and control” its hosts. Colbert, the top-rated late-night talk show host in the US, said last week on his CBS show Late Night – which he took over from David Letterman in 2015 – that Paramount’s decision to pay a $16m settlement to Trump over another flagship CBS show, 60 Minutes, amounted to a “big fat...

Protesters gathered in New York City to hold a “We’re With Colbert” rally on Sunday in support of the recently canned ” The Late Show” host. The rally was held outside of the CBS Broadcast Center on Manhattan‘s West Side, according to the New York Post. The outlet noted that only around 20 people showed up to the event, with most attendees — including the New York Police Department (NYPD) officers assigned to keep the peace — leaving shortly after it began. “Our country is not perfect, never has been,” the event organizer told the outlet. The event organizer went...

Jon Stewart does not sound like he is losing sleep over “The Daily Show” potentially being canceled if Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount is approved. Stewart, on the Thursday episode of his “The Weekly Show” podcast, was asked if he is concerned the deal would spell the end of the long-running comedy program, in part because of his recent criticism of Paramount and President Donald Trump. The 62-year-old comedian said he is not worried about it. “You know, unfortunately, we haven’t heard anything from [Paramount or Skydance]. They haven’t called me and said like, ‘Don’t get too comfortable in that office.’”...

President Donald Trump’s top consumer protection and antitrust official has approved a massive $13.5 billion merger that will reshape the advertising industry, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin of coordination against outlets based on their political viewpoints. The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday morning that it has decided not to block a merger between Omnicom and IPG, two rival firms which together make up a third of the world’s “Big Six” advertising agencies. But rather than rubber stamp the deal, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson extracted a major concession: the firms have agreed to cease all coordination related to...

U.S. Steel shares are jumping in premarket trading Friday on a report that Nippon Steel is offering to spend as much as $7 billion to upgrade the American company’s aging Rust Belt facilities in a bid to obtain the Trump administration's approval of their $14 billion merger. The Biden administration had blocked the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel on national security grounds in January. Semafor reported that Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel are in talks with the Trump administration for the Japanese company to raise its $2.7 billion planned investment in the US firm's facilities. U.S. Steel...

he budding romance between Honda and Nissan may have already come to an end. On Thursday, Nissan president Makoto Uchida informed his counterpart, Honda president Toshihiro Mibe, that he was pulling out of merger talks, according to several media reports. A withdrawal ends months of behind-the-scenes conversations between the two Japanese carmakers. The two auto giants, along with fellow carmaker Mitsubishi Motors, announced in late December that they would explore a merger, possibly creating the world’s third-largest automaker. Honda, No. 57 on the most recent Fortune Global 500 ranking, reported $141.3 billion in revenue for 2023; Nissan, at No. 136,...

Albertsons said Wednesday that it has terminated a $25 billion merger agreement with Kroger and will sue the grocery giant, alleging the company didn’t do enough to get the deal done. Judges in Washington and Oregon on Tuesday blocked the deal, delivering a win to federal regulators and consumer advocates who argued the merger could harm competition, consumers and workers and push prices up. “Rather than fulfill its contractual obligations to ensure that the merger succeeded, Kroger acted in its own financial self-interest, repeatedly providing insufficient divestiture proposals that ignored regulators’ concerns. Kroger’s self-serving conduct, taken at the expense of...

A U.S. District Judge in Oregon has blocked a $25 billion-bid by supermarket giant Kroger to take over rival Albertsons after ruling that the Federal Trade Commission's concerns about the merger's impact on market consolidation were valid. Judge Adrienne Nelson said Tuesday afternoon that a merger between the two companies would end up harming consumers. The two companies "engage in substantial head-to-head competition and the proposed merger would remove that competition," Ferguson wrote. As a result, the proposed merger would likely to lead to outcomes that "unilaterally" harm consumers, and is thus "presumptively unlawful. " Judge Ferguson also ruled the...

U.S. Steel shares plunged on Wednesday as Wall Street questioned whether its $14.1 billion deal with Japan's Nippon Steel is at risk of derailing. Shares of U.S. Steel plunged as much as 25% in afternoon trading after the Washington Post reported President Joe Biden is preparing to formally block the proposed acquisition. As of 2:35 p.m., shares of U.S. Steel were down $7.12, or 20%, to $28.48. The White House downplayed the Washington Post report, which cited three people familiar with the president's plans. In a statement, it cited a process of review by the Committee on Foreign Investments in...

The liaison team of the Labor Party, led by Yair Golan, and the Meretz party, led by party secretary general Tomer Reznik, have reached a merger agreement to form a party called "The Democrats." Both parties have pointed out that this is not a "technical bloc," but rather a "historical process that has finally produced one large and united party, a liberal-democratic Zionist party that will be a political home to a large public in Israel; for those who are going out to defend the image and character of the country, as well as for civil entities that are striving...

Growing up in San Bernardino, California in the 1980s was an experience that shaped me in many ways. One of the highlights of those years was playing high school football, and one of our fiercest rivals was Fontana High School. Fontana was known for having one of the toughest football teams in San Bernardino County, and our games against them were always intense and hard-fought. But Fontana was more than just a football rival. It was a town with a long and proud history of steel production. The Kaiser steel production facility, a major employer in the area, closed its...

In October 2022, I shared a big announcement in the retail world: Two massive, U.S. grocery store chains, Kroger and Albertsons, had agreed to merge, in a deal worth nearly $25 billion:CNBC:Rival grocers Kroger and Albertsons on Friday announced plans to team up.The companies said Kroger agreed to buy Albertsons for $34.10 a share in a deal valued at $24.6 billion. Albertsons shares had closed Thursday at $28.63 after surging on reports that a deal was imminent.Kroger is the second-largest grocer by market share in the United States, behind Walmart, and Albertsons is fourth, after Costco. Together, Kroger and Albertsons...

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a merger of former President Donald Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, with Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC), which is a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). There were two years of delay leading up to the deal because of an investigation into the company by regulators. Now the SEC has approved the merger of approximately $10 billion after the long wait on Wall Street, according to reporting from OANN. The Trump Media & Technology Group, which owned both companies, intends to take Truth Social public in an initial public offering...

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit to block the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons because of the negative ramifications he says it would have for residents, such as fewer options and higher prices. In the suit, filed on Monday, Ferguson argued that the proposed $24.6 billion merger, announced in October 2022, "will likely substantially lessen supermarket competition or tend to create a monopoly in many Washington communities," where both companies currently compete. This would likely increase prices of food and other grocery products in supermarkets offered to Washington consumers while simultaneously decreasing "the quantity and quality...

Opposition to the $24.6 billion Kroger, Albertsons merger does not appear to be dying down as the Teamsters union announced they oppose the deal. The Teamsters, a labor union representing members in the U.S. and Canada, said that some 22,000 of their members work for Kroger and Albertsons, across the companies’ stores, distribution centers, and manufacturing plants. The Teamsters said they had been engaging in talks with both Kroger and Albertsons over the last few months, but little progress was made regarding some of the concerns the union had around the merger deal, including job security. “In our discussions with...

Twitter’s Board of Directors told the platform's shareholders to accept the world’s richest man’s $44 billion takeover deal, according to a new government filing. The filing specifically told shareholders that it “unanimously recommends that you vote” for “the adoption of the merger agreement” with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk reportedly “listed the approval of the deal by shareholders as one of several ‘unresolved matters’ related to the Twitter deal” during an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum. The document also stated that the board "unanimously" agreed that "the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated...

CNN host Brian Stelter claimed Sunday on “Reliable Sources” that the failed attempt to make CNN+ a viable streaming service was because of the merger of the new owner’s Warner Bros. Discovery. Stelter said, “What a turbulent week for major media companies with CNN, Netflix, Disney and Twitter all left spinning with no stopping in sight. Here at CNN, new ownership decided to shut down the CNN+ streaming service less than a month after it was launched by the previous management team. The u-turn was front-page news, stunning news and painful news for everyone involved. Years of development possibly down...

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. agreed to acquire Kansas City Southern in a merger valued at about $25 billion that would create the first freight-rail network linking Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. The companies said Sunday their boards agreed to a deal that values Kansas City at $275 a share in a combination of cash and stock. Kansas City investors will receive 0.489 of a Canadian Pacific share and $90 in cash for each Kansas City common share held. If approved by regulators, the deal would unite two of the major North American freight carriers, linking factories and ports in Mexico,...