Paramount agrees to sweetened Skydance merger deal

Paramount Global has agreed to merge with Skydance Media successful a woody that volition spot the associated enterprise, dubbed “New Paramount,” valued astatine astir $28 billion.

As portion of the two-step statement announced connected Sunday, Paramount Chair Shari Redstone (the girl of Sumner Redstone) volition merchantability National Amusements — which holds her family’s controlling involvement successful Paramount — for $2.4 billion. Skydance volition past merge with Paramount, investing $8 cardinal to acquisition Paramount’s shares and wage disconnected immoderate of the company’s equilibrium sheet. Bloomberg reports that Paramount has $14.6 cardinal of indebtedness arsenic of March, partially attributed to streaming losses and a diminution successful the company’s broadcast and cablegram TV business.

“Given the changes successful the industry, we privation to fortify Paramount for the aboriginal portion ensuring that contented remains king,” said Redstone, citing a operation often associated with her precocious father. “Our anticipation is that the Skydance transaction volition alteration Paramount’s continued occurrence successful this rapidly changing environment. As a longtime accumulation spouse to Paramount, Skydance knows Paramount good and has a wide strategical imaginativeness and the resources to instrumentality it to its adjacent signifier of growth.”

Skydance laminitis David Ellison (son of Oracle’s Larry Ellison) volition go the caller president and main enforcement of Paramount, with erstwhile NBCUniversal main enforcement Jeff Shell assigned arsenic its caller president. Ellison replaces erstwhile Paramount CEO Bob Bakish, who departed the institution successful April aft reportedly clashing with Redstone implicit the Skydance deal.

The merger announcement follows months of negotiations, with the statement initially appearing to beryllium called disconnected successful June aft the companies couldn’t “reach mutually acceptable terms.”  According to Reuters, the caller woody offered by Skydance increases the Redstone family’s payout to $1.75 cardinal and bolsters ineligible protections against imaginable shareholder lawsuits.

Redstone present has a 45-day “go-shop” play nether the merger statement to judge a amended deal. However, as Deadline notes, Redstone’s interior announcement sent to employees thanking them for their work suggests it’s a done deal. “The statement we entered into contiguous is taxable to closing conditions, and we expect the woody to beryllium completed successful the archetypal fractional of 2025.”