Paramount Global mogul Shari Redstone, who deliberated for months about whether and how to relinquish control of her family’s film and TV empire, now formally has a new offer to consider.
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A consortium led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. — heir to his family’s Seagram’s liquor fortune and an executive who formerly ran Universal Studios when his father owned its parent company — unveiled a competing bid for Paramount and Redstone’s holding vehicle, National Amusements.
Bronfman submitted a roughly $4.3 billion bid to acquire National Amusements, The Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 19. His offer includes $2.4 billion in debt and equity for National Amusements, and Bronfman also would contribute $1.5 billion to Paramount’s balance sheet, which could be used to pay down debt, according to the paper, which cites multiple sources. Bronfman’s bid also adds the $400 million breakup fee if National Amusements was to go with a rival deal.
Paramount has a 45-day “go-shop” window that ends Aug. 21, which allows the special committee of its board of directors to evaluate offers. If a serious bidder emerged, that window could be extended to Sept. 5. A rep for Paramount’s special committee and a spokesperson for National Amusements declined to comment on Bronfman’s bid.
Bronfman, who also ran Warner Music Group from 2004 to 2011 and currently serves as executive chairman to streaming platform FuboTV, has had an eclectic Hollywood career. In addition to his C-suite roles in Universal’s MCA-owned era as well as his family’s The Seagram Company, the executive had been on the board of Barry Diller’s IAC for two decades ending in 2019 and co-founded venture firm Waverley Capital. He has also produced features and written songs for film that were performed by Celine Dion and Donna Summers. And, at one point, while running Universal in the late 1990s, he floated the idea of variable movie ticket pricing based on the budget of the feature.
On July 7, David Ellison’s Skydance Media and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital Partners inked a deal that includes a $2.4 billion cash investment to acquire Redstone’s National Amusements. The agreement also sets aside consideration for Paramount stockholders, including “$4.5 billion for the stock/cash merger consideration to be paid for publicly traded Class A shares and Class B shares,” the companies said. And the Skydance bid would add $1.5 billion to Paramount’s balance sheet.
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In the event of a bidding war, Ellison would appear to be well positioned given his family’s vast fortune. His father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, is currently worth $152 billion and is No. 6 on Bloomberg ‘s Billionaires Index, listed right after Microsoft founder Bill Gates and above Google co-founder Larry Page.
David Ellison formed Skydance in 2010 and has backed Paramount films including World War Z , Star Trek Into Darkness and G.I. Joe: Retaliation while building out the Santa Monica-based company that now has television, animation and gaming divisions. And, as part of an investors presentation that touts a Skydance-backed plan to revamp Paramount into a “World-Class Media and Technology Enterprise,” a renewed focus on its intellectual property is part of that equation.
In the meantime, Paramount, run by its trio of co-chiefs Brian Robbins, Chris McCarthy and George Cheeks, is implementing a significant restructuring centered around cost-cutting and asset sales. In order to cleave $500 million in annual run rate cost savings, the company said that it is cutting its U.S.-based workforce by 15 percent, which will impact areas like marketing and communications, finance, legal and technology.
Paramount, which owns a large collection of linear TV assets like CBS, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon, is also considering slimming down its portfolio. One asset that is expected to be on the market is its BET Media Group, which comprises the BET channel, streamer BET+, as well as VH1 and BET Studios.
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