Paramount Global‘s months-long M&A drama may soon be coming to a conclusion.
The special committee established by Paramount Global’s board of directors to evaluate M&A proposals has reached an agreement with David Ellison’s Skydance Media and his private-equity backers on the terms of a complicated deal that would merge Skydance and Paramount while keeping Paramount publicly traded, Variety has confirmed. Skydance and its partners, RedBird Capital and KKR, sweetened the original buyout offer to make it more attractive to nonvoting shareholders of Paramount Global.
Now, the deal awaits approval by Shari Redstone, non-executive chair of Paramount Global, whose National Amusements Inc. owns 77% of the voting shares in Paramount Global. Redstone has not officially decided whether or not to go forward on the deal, sources said — and the terms of the Skydance-NAI part of the agreement have yet to be worked out. If she does agree, it would end her family’s decades-long control over the media conglomerate and its predecessor companies.
The Skydance-Paramount merger would not require approval by Paramount’s Class B shareholders.
On word of the Skydance-Paramount deal potentially nearing the finish line, the price of Class B shares of Paramount Global were trading up 7.5% Monday to about $12.80/share. New details of Skydance’s deal terms were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal and CNBC.
Read More at Variety.com.