One Merger To End Them All
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
Shari's choice, 300 2.0, Elle Fanning becomes Prey, Sarah Snook's meltdown, Killer Films bodyswap, and allegorical dogs.
Let’s go!
ONE MERGER TO END THEM ALL
We still don’t know what Shari Redstone (majority shareholder of Paramount) is doing.
But as of now, the Skydance, RedBird, and KKR consortium have agreed to initial deal terms to acquire Paramount:
$2 bn for Shari Redstone
E.g., buying her stake in National Amusements (Paramount’s parent company)
Skydance buys nearly 50% of Class B shares for $15/share
$4.5 bn total
$3 bn in cash to reduce Paramount’s debt
$1.5 bn from Skydance
$1.5 bn from RedBird
If this closes, the ownership of the company, which will remain public, would breakdown as follows:
66%
Skydance & RedBird
33%
Paramount's Class B shareholders
The leadership team would tentatively be as follows:
Paramount/Skydance Studios CEO
David Ellison (current CEO of Skydance)
Paramount Global/CBS
Jeff Shell, executive RedBird (former CEO NBCUnivesal)
Jeff Zucker, Executive RedBird (former president of CNN)
The total deal is valued at $8 bn.
A National Amusements spokesperson stated:
“We received the financial terms of the proposed Paramount/Skydance transaction over the weekend and we are reviewing them.”
No word on when Redstone will make a decision.
Two possible yet unlikely targets: