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April 5, 2024
Paramount and Skydance Enter Exclusive Talks to Merge
Paramount Global and Skydance have entered exclusive talks to discuss a possible merger. By: Kritchanon Tan Kian Wei
US - Paramount Global has entered exclusive talks with Skydance regarding a potential merger, following a US$26 billion cash offer from Apollo Global Management to acquire Paramount.
As part of the negotiations, Paramount will not speak with other potential acquirers for a period of 30 days, while it tries to work out a deal with Skydance.
Following the news, shares of Paramount surged about 15% on Wednesday April 3.
Founded in 2010, Skydance is a film studio best known for Top Gun: Maverick (2022), while Paramount is a well-known media giant behind the Transformers and Mission: Impossible film franchises, and who also owns the television networks CBS, Nickelodeon and MTV. Paramount Pictures has been the subject of many buyers’ attention, with companies like Netflix thinking to acquire the media giant.
Skydance founder David Ellison has apparently been trying for months to reach a deal with Shari Redstone, whose family owns the cinema group National Amusements that holds 77% of Paramount’s voting stock, in order to merge Paramount with Skydance. Ellison was interested in an all-cash bid to acquire the group, but Redstone had reportedly been reluctant to part with Paramount, the studio that her father, the late Sumner Redstone, acquired in 1994. However, it looks like things have changed, as an April 3 report by Bloomberg News said that Redtone had reached a tentative agreement to sell her stake in Paramount to Skydance.
Paramount and Skydance remain tight-lipped on the matter, despite numerous reports which revealed the merger plans and the subsequent buzz.
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