David Ellison's Skydance Media and its financial backers are reportedly considering a deal to take Paramount Global private.
Skydance — the film and television studio run by Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison — has exchanged preliminary information with Paramount. CNBC reported Wednesday night.said an anonymous source.
Full due diligence has not yet begun, the report said.
Skydance is working with private equity firms Redbird Capital Partners and KKR on a deal to acquire National Amusements, a holding company owned by Shari Redstone.
It controls 77% of Paramount's voting stock.
However, the deal meant that Skydance, which produced Paramount blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning, and Top Gun: Maverick, and Redstone's debt-laden CNBC reported that a merger with media giant Skydance would be a condition. .
Lestone, who owns Paramount Picture Studios, MTV and CBS, comes as her company struggles to keep up with the likes of Netflix, Disney and Amazon as the media landscape shifts from traditional television to streaming. We are considering selling Paramount.
The newspaper reported that the heirs will pay off debt related to National Amusements, including a $37.5 million payment on a $175 million loan from Wells Fargo scheduled for March. He says he is also struggling.
Paramount, which is cutting nearly 800 jobs, has its own set of struggles, including a massive $15 billion in debt. The company is currently considering selling the BET Network.
According to a report from CNBC, Redstone is offering the rest of Paramount Global in response to the sale of National Amusement (which also includes loss-making movie theater chains such as Showcase Cinemas, Multiplex Cinemas, and Cinema de Lux). It's unclear whether it will demand a different premium than what shareholders earn, CNBC reported.
Skydance will need to secure additional capital to acquire Paramount, which has a market capitalization of $8.2 billion, CNBC said.
Some of that funding could come from Skydance's private equity partners, including Mr. Ellison's father.
People familiar with the matter told CNBC that Skydance has not yet decided whether to move forward with the deal and has not yet reached out for outside financing.
They said Skydance was not interested in a deal that would only buy National Amusements and not all of Paramount.
Such a deal would give Skydance control of Paramount, but as a publicly traded company, it would also be responsible for operating the loss-making streaming service Paramount+ and declining linear cable assets such as Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. Paramount's problems will not be solved.
Representatives for Redbird, Skydance, Paramount Global and National Amusements declined to comment.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav also held preliminary discussions last month about acquiring Paramount Global.
CNBC said that if Redstone were to sell to Skydance, “it would be motivated in part by concerns that Warner Bros. Discovery would prefer a merger with Comcast's NBCUniversal.”
pack news First reported on Skydance's interest It acquired National Amusement early last month.
last week, The Wall Street Journal reported Skydance was reportedly interested in a two-part deal that would involve a merger between Skydance and National Amusements. It was first reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday. Initial company information exchange.
