National Amusements, the parent company of storied film and TV giant Paramount, has ended months of talks by walking away from the table.
Skydance Media was once thought the best place to offload the Paramount brand after a rocky 2024. However, the studio now faces a tricky situation with an unruly board and months of uncertainty.
In a statement, National Amusements said to CBS that they “have not been able to reach mutually acceptable terms regarding the potential transaction with Skydance Media for the acquisition of a controlling stake in NAI.”
This might have to do with Skydance CEO David Ellison taking his initial proposal of $2.5 billion and substantially lessening it. Shari Redstone, Paramount and National Amusements majority shareholder was reportedly not impressed with the business deal after that slight.
Paramount takeover talks end
As we reported, this saga has taken months of heated debate, with the marquee figure being Redstone.
Redstone was seeking a massive deal for a suitor to swoop in to take National Amusements (NA). NA own the movie and TV brand, and the deal that needed to be done involved the entire bundle of the ownership group’s assets.
Redstone received a staggering 905,000 votes against her standing to be a part of the Paramount decision-makers. This could be due to the current CEO displaying a series of annual cost-cutting exercises to $500 million annually and a horribly handled takeover deal.
The boardroom at Paramount has been a wild environment that is now even hitting the trading floors of Wall Street. The total share loss of Paramount is around 25% of its value over the last 52 weeks, a shocking statistic.
Paramount announced before their board meeting and elections that a cost-saving plan would be in place. It reportedly involves cutbacks of up to half-a-million million annually and a total company restructuring.
Paramount’s struggles to get a deal done are now turning into a horror movie rather than the Hallmark trial over adversity. To those vacating Paramount and the shareholders who wanted to cash in on a sale, the lead villain role will certainly be handed to Redstone in this tale of tragic boardroom management.
Image: Ideogram.
