Skydance Media of David Ellison is exploring acquisition of total Paramount Global as per the sources. David Ellison’s Skydance Media and its financial backers are exploring an acquisition deal to take private all of Paramount Global, as per people familiar with the matter.
Skydance Media, the film and TV studio run by Ellison, has exchanged preliminary information with Paramount, said the people, who asked not to be named because the acquisition deal talks are private. Full due diligence hasn’t started, the people said.
Skydance Media deal
David Ellison’s Skydance has been working with private equity firms RedBird Capital Partners and KKR & Co. on a deal for acquisition of National Amusements, the holding company owned by Shari Redstone. It controls 77% of Paramount’s voting stock.
But that National Amusements acquisition deal is contingent on merging Skydance with Paramount. And the likely structure for a merger would be a complete takeover private of the larger media company, said the people.
Paramount Global acquisition
Redstone is considering selling as there is a shift of media landscape away from traditional TV toward streaming. While Paramount Global has run a profitable business for decades, it is smaller than Netflix, Google’s YouTube, Apple, Amazon, and other larger streamers that have bigger balance sheets to afford sports and entertainment content.
No acquisition is assured, and talks could fall apart.
It is unclear if Redstone would demand a different premium for selling National Amusements than the remaining shareholders of Paramount Global would obtain.
Skydance Media’s capital need
Skydance Media would need additional capital to acquire Paramount, which has a market capitalization of $8.2 billion and about $15 billion of debt. Some of that funding could come from Skydance’s private equity partners and Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle and David Ellison’s father. Skydance Media hasn’t reached out for outside financing yet, as it hasn’t decided if it wants to move forward with a deal, said the people.
What Skydance Media wants
Skydance Media isn’t interested in a deal where there is only National Amusements acquisition but not all of Paramount Global acquisition, said the people. While such a deal would give Skydance control of Paramount. It wouldn’t solve Paramount’s problems as a publicly traded company. This includes running the growing but money-losing Paramount+ streaming service, and operating declining linear cable assets such as MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.
RedBird, Skydance, Paramount Global and National Amusements spokespeople declined to comment.
Warner Bros. Discovery interest
Warner Bros. Discovery has also had preliminary discussions about Paramount Global acquisition, according to people familiar with the matter. If Redstone sells to Skydance, one motivating factor would be fear that Warner Bros. Discovery would prefer to merge with Comcast’s NBCUniversal, one of the people said.
