"a $3.3bn deal" sounds to me like just "puff". He paid 1.3bn for the company and took on the company's debt. The transfering of debts adds to the amount of money involved with the deal but not how much he effectively paid for WB (IE, one presumes that by gaining control of WB, he gained control of the assets which hypothetically backed the 1.9bn debt so whether he owes the debt or whether warner-which-he-controls owes the debt doesn't change anything except to make some bankers feel more secure).

what your saying sounds like it's right, I think it makes more sense than what I said anyway. Thanks.

Net worth is price paid minus debts. Similar to my net worth would be my assets minus debts.

Net worth is assets minus liabilities like debts. He paid 3.3 B so far, and he's still on the hook for 1.9 B in debts, so the net worth is more.

Wow, simple finance can still be tricky.

I don't know if my understanding is right but so far as my understanding of the language goes, both you and the parent are wrong.

He's paid 1.4 bn for control of WB and as a condition of the deal he took on 1.9 Bn in existing debt that WB already had. Assuming that WB was solvent and those debts weren't written down, taking on this debt would be transaction that involved spending no money as such - if a parent company takes on the debt of a solvent subsidiary, there's no real money being spent (the subsidiary increases in value by debt amount, the parent decreases in value by an identical amount money and total transaction's bookkeeping value is zero - though such a transaction would make a banker holding the debt feel more secure and would involve money if the transfered debts had been written-down and were now going to be paid in full).

That's my understanding, some true finance wonk can correct me if I'm wrong.