The saga of Paramount Global’s change of ownership has come to a billion-dollar close.
Over the past year, Paramount has been navigating a highly intricate transfer of ownership. The current majority shareholder, Shari Redstone, has been resolute that the offers received have not met her high expectations.
Skydance Media and owner David Ellison eventually won the battle to own the legendary media empire known for CBS, Nickelodeon and MTV.
Skydance takes over Paramount
As we previously reported, Ellison was chasing this move for several months. Redstone was unhappy with the overall offer from the tech legend’s company, Skydance.
Redstone owns 77% of the voting rights for any move, so making the storied Hollywood family happy with any deal would dictate the terms. She was also looking for a package deal for National Amusements, the umbrella company that owns the Paramount assets.
Last month, we covered Redstone’s rough treatment of the board voters and teased a grim future for Paramount employees if this deal didn’t happen.
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 the poorly handled negotiations of the takeover deal.
Redstone and Ellison have played hardball throughout this process with both the offers and the company itself. Elison dropped his initial $2.5 billion offer substantially, which caused National Amusements to walk.
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.”
Now, the tale has come to an end. Skydance and the partners involved have reached a $2.4 billion cash settlement to take over National Amusements. Then Skydance and Paramount will merge, with a stock or cash settlement given to current shareholders.
Paramount is around $14bn in debt to creditors, and Skydance has offered an additional $1.5 billion to take this figure down as part of the takeover deal.
Although this might not be the last twist in the takeover deal, as Paramount has 45 days to find a better offer, if Skydance does not match that offer, Paramount would have to pay a $400 million break of agreement payment.
Image: Ideogram.
