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Shari Redstone, the chairman of Paramount Global PARA+1.75% and its parent company National Amusements, is reportedly set to make about $530 million when the media giant’s merger deal with Skydance Media closes in 2025.
Redstone will receive $70 million in a severance package, alone, to be paid by Skydance and its buying partners, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
Skydance and Paramount originally reached an agreement in July for an $8 billion merger, in which Skydance, led by David Ellison, would acquire National Amusements and merge with Paramount, which itself owns media brands including MTV and CBS. But the deal had a “go-shop” period that allowed Paramount to consider other offers.
Edgar Bronfman, a business magnate and media executive from the family behind liquor empire Seagram Co., scraped together a last-minute bid for $4.3 billion and then upped that offer to $6 billion in August
Paramount extended its “go-shop” period to consider the offer, but Bronfman decided to abandon the deal.
Now the Skydance-Paramount deal is set to be finalized sometime in the first half of 2025. David Ellison, the son of Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, founded Skydance in 2006 to fund and produce media projects. Skydance’s first production, the box-office flop “Flyboys,” starred the younger Ellison. Skydance went on to co-finance and co-produce projects with Paramount for more than a decade.
As part of the deal, Bloomberg says Skydance, the Ellison family, and RedBird Capital Partners are paying $2.4 billion including liabilities for National Amusements. Redstone, who owns a 20% stake in National Amusements, will make about $350 million from the sale, in addition to the $70 million severance package and a $110 million pension liability.
National Amusement did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Quartz.
Skydance is also planning to invest $6 billion to buy shares of Paramount and pay off some of its debt. Paramount will then merge with Skydance, with Ellison leading the new company.
- Ben Kesslen contributed to this report.