HEY, BIG SPENDER: Paramount’s new, hostile offer to Warner Bros. Discovery: Larry Ellison will personally guarantee $40 billion.

The Warner Bros. board of directors has rejected Paramount’s bid multiple times, opting instead to go with an offer from Netflix, which WBD says is more valuable. The board also said Paramount has misrepresented itself to WBD shareholders, calling into question the legitimacy of the deal’s “illusory” proposed financing.

To counteract that critique, Paramount said Oracle founder Larry Ellison – the father of Paramount CEO David Ellison – will guarantee all $40.4 billion of the equity he’s putting up to finance the $78 billion deal. That’s a big guarantee, putting Larry Ellison on the hook for about a sixth of his roughly $250 billion net worth if something falls through.

More: “Paramount offered $30 per share for WBD, including CNN and the rest of its cable channels. Netflix offered $27.75 per share for Warner Bros. and HBO. But Netflix and WBD argue that plans to spin off the cable assets will increase those stations’ overall value and will, in total, value the company more highly than Paramount’s deal.”

I find it very hard to believe that the package of limping cable channels that WBD is spinning off as Discovery Global will increase in value.