William Cohan

New York

Founding Partner at Puck

Writer-at-Large at AIR MAIL

Husband. Father. Best-selling author of, most recently, Power Failure. Founding partner, @Pucknews. Air Mail writer-at-large. Occasional @FT Op-Ed Writer.

Featured in: Favicon

puck.news

airmail.news Favicon

cnn.com

msn.com

nytimes.com Favicon

bloomberg.com Favicon

businessinsider.com Favicon

indiatimes.com Favicon

washingtonpost.com Favicon

aol.com + 70 more

Articles

Is WBD’s Debt Tender Offer Too Good to Refuse?

1 week ago | puck.news | William Cohan

These days, everyone and their dog seems to have an opinion on the soon-to-be-concluding Warner Bros. Discovery experiment. Should the deal have been consummated in the first place? Was its $55 billion in debt the original sin? Will the recently announced split get everyone to the promised land?
Could the New, Cable-less WBD Be Worth $40 Billion?

1 week ago | puck.news | William Cohan

While the equity markets continue to process David Zaslav’s announcement that he’s splitting Warner Bros. Discovery into two publicly traded companies—a declining linear television business, run by Gunnar Wiedenfels, known for now as Global Networks, and a Zaz-led, debt-lite, growing, Streaming & Studios business—our friend Rich Greenfield at LightShed Partners offered a few interesting points.
Could the New, Cable-less WBD Be Worth $40B?

1 week ago | puck.news | William Cohan

While the equity markets continue to process David Zaslav’s announcement that he’s splitting Warner Bros. Discovery into two publicly traded companies—a declining linear television business, run by Gunnar Wiedenfels, known for now as Global Networks, and a Zaz-led, debt-lite, growing, Streaming & Studios business—our friend Rich Greenfield at LightShed Partners offered a few interesting points.
What Happens to WBD’s Debt After the Company Is Split?

2 weeks ago | puck.news | William Cohan

I’ve got to hand it to David Zaslav. His ability to keep news of the Warner Bros. Discovery split from leaking was an impressive feat of staying schtum, as my 90-year-old mother likes to say. There he was in Paris on Sunday, taking in the French Open men’s final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz (seated next to Dustin Hoffman and his wife, Lisa), betraying nothing about what was to come the next morning.
The Paramount Merger Nightmare Scenario

2 weeks ago | puck.news | William Cohan

It’s been a bit of a rough patch, objectively speaking, for Shari Redstone, the principal owner of Paramount Global. She and her top executives have been trying to settle a ridiculous $20 billion lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against CBS News, a division of Paramount Global; at the same time, they’re waiting for the president’s F.C.C. to approve the sale of the whole company to Skydance’s David Ellison and RedBird Capital, which would net Shari and her family $2.4 billion upon closing.
What Happens if the Paramount-Skydance Merger Falls Through?

3 weeks ago | puck.news | William Cohan

It’s been almost a year since the Ellisons and RedBird Capital struck a deal to merge Skydance Media into Paramount Global, while simultaneously recapitalizing the company and keeping it publicly traded under their control. Any deal where a broadcast license changes hands—in this case, CBS’s—can take a while to receive the necessary regulatory approvals. When GE sold NBCUniversal to Comcast more than a decade ago, some 14 months passed between signing and closing.
S&P Isn’t Buying Zaz’s Turnaround Just Yet

3 weeks ago | puck.news | William Cohan

Those following the travelogue of David Zaslav’s debt journey know that I’ve long anticipated a credit-rating upgrade for his beleaguered Warner Bros. Discovery—a putative reward that might finally boost the company’s long-languishing stock, which is down some 60 percent since WBD was created in April 2022. The logic was simple: Zaz and WBD C.F.O. Gunnar Wiedenfels have paid down $21 billion of their original $55 billion in debt in three years. A pretty impressive feat, all things considered.
Trump’s SALT Rule Targets Law Firms, Doctors, Small Businesses

1 month ago | puck.news | William Cohan

Buried deep inside Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” tax bill is a provision that has the professional class up in arms across the country, as it seems to unfairly target them for a big, beautiful, tax increase while others get a big, beautiful cut.
New Private Golf Clubs Are Impossible to Get Into

1 month ago | airmail.news | William Cohan

Bored rich men do a lot of strange things with their money. One particular folly they’ve been indulging in for generations is building private golf clubs. Sometimes there’s a clear reason for starting a club, and it works out well.
New Problems for Saks Global and Its Distressed Bonds

1 month ago | puck.news | William Cohan

The situation at Saks Global, one of the most venerable names in American retail, continues to deteriorate. To “level set,” as the consultants like to say, the price of Saks Global’s $2.2 billion of senior secured bonds, due 2029, is now around 47 cents on the dollar, yielding 34.5 percent. Bond prices fluctuate all the time, of course. But it’s striking for a bond to have fallen in price by half in about five months, and to be yielding more than 30 percent.