In This Story
Paramount Global stock surged almost 8% Monday morning after details of a sweetened merger offer from Skydance Media emerged this weekend.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, reports that Skydance last week submitted a revised offer to acquire National Amusements, the holding company behind Paramount. The new deal aims to address concerns from Paramount’s non-voting shareholders.
Under the new deal, Skydance, led by David Ellison, the son of Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, would acquire National Amusements, which owns about 77% of Paramount voting shares.
Skydance would then inject at least $1.5 billion in cash into Paramount’s balance sheet. The company has agreed to buy a certain amount of non-voting shares at about $15 share—a roughly 26% premium on the stock’s Friday closing price. Paramount Global would then acquire Skydance.
The Wall Street Journal noted that the deal could still fall apart as negotiations are ongoing. Paramount Global declined to comment.
In a previous offer, Skydance proposed buying National Amusements for $2 billion cash. Paramount would then have acquired Skydance in an all-stock deal valuing Skydance at $5 billion.
Sony Pictures and Apollo Global Management have also made a $26 billion all-cash offer to buy Paramount Global.
Paramount is currently being led by an “office of the CEO” made up of three division heads at the company. That office includes CBS CEO George Cheeks; Chris McCarthy, the CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon CEO Brian Robbins. The trio are set to present their long-term plan for the company at Paramount’s annual stockholder meeting on Tuesday.