Shari Redstone has paid off nearly $200 million in debt from her family's Paramount business, most of which she paid off in cash with help from tech mogul Larry Ellison, The Post has learned. .
The 70-year-old daughter of the late media mogul Sumner Redstone last month paid 186 million yen to creditors of National Amusements, the holding company that owns 77.5% of Paramount's voting stock, according to sources familiar with the matter. He reportedly paid more than $1,000.
On Tuesday, a person close to the situation confirmed that Redstone received most of the cash from Oracle's co-founder. Oracle co-founder David Ellison is the CEO of Skydance, the Hollywood studio that produced the latest films, “Top Gun'' and “Mission: Impossible.'' 'A blockbuster hit.
Skydance and its partners include RedBird Capital Partners. agreed to pay $2.4 billion It targets the NAI family's entire stake in the complex $8 billion deal that led to its merger with Paramount. David Ellison will lead the new company.
Redstone holds a 20% stake in NAI through two trusts in her name, with approximately Sale for $350 millionaccording to Bloomberg.
Sources told The Post that she paid off her 2018 loan in full, even though the balance was due by May 2025, and the interest rate was as high as 11.5%. Ta.
Representatives for Redstone, Paramount and Skydance declined to comment.
Her decision to pay off the loan early comes at a time when Paramount is struggling with a weakening of its entire business unit, from CBS to cable networks such as Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon, leaving the media heiress in financial trouble. This was in response to reports that he was suffering.
National Amusements sold real estate assets in February to pay a $40 million debt to the same group of creditors, the Post exclusively reported.
An industry insider who learned of the situation said, “Mr. Shari needed funds and couldn't wait until an agreement was reached.''
Another person supporting the merger added: It's no exaggeration to say that she was desperate to sell the company. ”
The revelation that she had received funding from Skydance's controlling owner raised questions about whether Redstone received a sweet deal and rejected a bid that was more favorable to Paramount's shareholders.
Redstone suffered several false starts, including higher preliminary offers from other suitors and protests from Paramount investors, who feared that partnering with an independent studio would change them in the short term. After that, he signed a contract with Skydance in July.
one of the so-called suitors Reportedly, it was Warner Bros. Discovery. But negotiations broke down last winter after Paramount did not provide cash to shareholders, according to a Nov. 4 public filing.
In exchange, the media giant agreed to pay an astronomical 1,600 times the valuation of Skydance's profits, excluding interest, taxes and depreciation at the time of the deal, filings show.
Skydance's EBIDTA for the 12 months ended June 30, 2024 was just $3 million, according to the filing.
The deal includes a much smaller Skydance-Paramount merger. The company will pay $15 a share for up to $4.3 billion in common stock, about half of Paramount's market capitalization.
The deal is expected to close early next year.
Despite the outlook for the combined business, Paramount stock was trading around $10 on Tuesday.
Skydance's Ebitda is expected to soar to $258 million in 2025 due to the release of the latest Mission: Impossible movie and several other films.
In contrast, Amazon paid 27.5 times the company's EBITDA when it acquired movie studio MGM in 2021.
“There wasn't a single prominent shareholder who was excited about taking over the Skydance business,” a Paramount analyst told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.
“Skydance's numbers made a bad deal look even worse.”
Last week, Mario Gabelli, Paramount's second-largest shareholder and a prominent investor, asked the Federal Communications Commission to suspend its review of the broadcast license transfer to review Skydance's finances.
Arrived on Tuesday FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said: The network plans to investigate how “60 Minutes'' edited the Kamala Harris interview, which could delay its closure.
Paramount always acquired Skydance primarily based on big projections for 2025, and the studio could continue to hit those numbers, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company's sales were expected to reach $974 million in 2024 and rise to $2.3 billion next year.
“The real question is whether this business will meet projections beyond 2025,'' said a person familiar with Paramount's thinking.
