The paper's Friday account of PIF walking away from LIV Golf as Yasir Al-Rumayyan stepped down read the Saudi sovereign checkbook as moving in two directions on one ledger. The Saturday register puts a number on the other direction. Paramount Skydance has asked the Federal Communications Commission to approve a merger funding structure in which 49.5 percent of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery equity is foreign-owned, with 38.5 percent of the equity held by a trio of Middle East sovereign wealth funds. [1]

The breakdown is on the FCC filing. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund takes 15.1 percent. The United Arab Emirates' sovereign vehicle takes 12.8 percent. The Qatar Investment Authority takes 10.6 percent. [2] The aggregate Gulf check is roughly $24 billion; PIF alone is putting up about $10 billion. [3] Paramount tells the FCC that the foreign investors will hold no board seats and no voting shares — the Ellison family and RedBird Capital retain 100 percent voting power. [4]

The 38.5 percent figure is now the formal post-merger Middle East concentration on a single American broadcaster. Variety described it as roughly twenty percent of the $111 billion deal value backed by Arab sovereign capital, with the Gulf rivals jointly bidding to own a piece of the same studio. [5] LIV Golf's wind-down was a redirection. Paramount-WBD is the destination.

The FCC review is now the gating event. Until it clears, the equity table is a proposal. After it clears, it is the largest Gulf concentration ever attached to an American media licensee.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco