Warner Bros. Discovery stock no longer trades anywhere. As of October 6, 2026, each share was converted into $31.01666668 in cash under Paramount’s takeover of the company, according to the completion announcement from Skydance, the corporate name Paramount now operates under. The release says WBD shares “have ceased trading on NASDAQ, effective today.”
The cash figure is stated to eight decimal places, which works out to just over $31.01 a share. For a holder with 100 shares, that is about $3,101.67. Anyone who held WBD in a brokerage account, a 401(k) or an IRA now has cash where the shares were, or soon will, and the practical questions are when it lands and how it gets reported.
Those two questions are where the announcement stops. The release states the per-share amount and the end of trading but does not say when brokerages will credit the money, and it does not walk through tax treatment. That leaves the timing to each holder’s broker and the tax reading to the IRS rules on selling stock.
Anyone still holding Warner Bros. Discovery shares in a brokerage account is on the clock from October 6, the day the stock stopped trading on Nasdaq.
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How the cash price is stated
The release uses a precise figure: “WBD shareholders received an amount in cash equal to $31.01666668 per share.” Cut off at the cent, that is just over $31.01 a share. The release does not address rounding, so each firm’s statement will be the final word on what posts to an account. A holder of 1,000 shares would be due about $31,016.67 at that rate.
WBD’s own investor relations site now carries a notice that, following the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance Corporation, visitors should go to ir.Skydance.com. The Nasdaq listing is gone. The company that bought it trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SKYD, with Class B shares beginning trading on October 6.
Where the money for the deal came from
The release says the transaction was supported by $47 billion of new equity investment in Class B common stock, priced at $12.00 a share, along with debt financing led by Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo. At $12.00 a share, $47 billion of new equity works out to roughly 3.9 billion Class B shares, and the $31.01666668 paid to each WBD holder is about 2.6 times that price. Engadget described the deal as a $110 billion mega-merger that carries $80 billion in debt.
David Ellison, the combined company’s chairman and chief executive, called the closing “a historic day, not just for Skydance but for our entire industry.” The release also puts the combined company at nearly $70 billion in revenue and says it is aiming to bring net leverage to its 3.0x target by the end of 2029. The same release says the company’s portfolio includes Paramount, Warner Bros., HBO and HBO Max, Paramount+ and Pluto TV, with more than 200 million streaming subscribers across platforms, and that its streaming products will unify into a single service over time. Management is quoted as targeting $6 billion-plus in run-rate synergies over the next three years.
What a cash payout means for holders who stay in the market
The release describes the consideration for WBD shares as cash and gives no exchange ratio into Skydance stock. Anyone who wants shares of the combined company, ticker SKYD, would be buying them on the open market at whatever price they trade.
The company is also telling investors what the combined business should earn. It says it is targeting more than $10 billion in free cash flow by 2030, a figure that matters to anyone weighing whether to put the WBD proceeds back into the new stock or somewhere else.
Holders in tax-advantaged retirement accounts see the proceeds as cash inside the account. Holders in taxable accounts face a different question, which is how the payout is reported on a tax return.
Confirming a WBD cash payout and its tax treatment
The first stop is the brokerage statement or online activity page, where the WBD position should show as closed and the cash should show as received or pending. Holders can compare the credited amount with shares held multiplied by $31.01666668. A gap on a large position is worth a call to the broker, which handles the payment and issues the tax form.
For taxable accounts, the IRS’s topic page on capital gains and losses is the free reference. It says gain or loss is the difference “between the adjusted basis in the asset and the amount you realized from the sale,” that assets held for more than one year count as long-term, and that most sales are reported on Form 8949 and summarized on Schedule D. Holders will want their purchase records, since basis is generally an asset’s cost.
The Skydance announcement remains the source for the $31.01666668 figure and the October 6 end of trading; the IRS page, last reviewed September 24, 2026, is the source for how sales of stock are measured and reported.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
