Paramount Skydance stock has rallied this month, suggesting the market is betting that the entertainment company will close its $81 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery -- despite the lingering uncertainty.
Shares of Paramount were up 1.3% on Friday. They have jumped 28% since July 30.
The odds of Paramount closing the acquisition have improved. As of Friday, users of the online-prediction website Polymarket were pricing in a 73% chance the deal gets done by June 30, 2027 -- up from 63% in late July. Polymarket has a data-sharing partnership with Dow Jones, the publisher of Barron's.
In mid-July, Paramount when it said it would delay the merger until June 1, 2027, or after a federal court rules on an antitrust lawsuit from state attorneys general who want to block the deal.
The company had hoped to close the acquisition by the end of September.
The biggest threat to the deal is California's attorney general, Rob Bonta, who filed the lawsuit as part of a coalition of 12 state attorneys general.
Paramount's chief legal officer, Makan Delrahim, said on Tuesday that the company was considering a move out of California as soon as October if it couldn't make progress on settling the lawsuit.
The stock's move higher suggests that investors think the sides will be able to settle.
Warner Bros. shares also have advanced, climbing 9% since July 30. The stock still trades more than $3 below the $31 a share Paramount has agreed to buy Warner for -- an indication that the market is still pricing in uncertainty.
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