Skydance Media Revises Paramount Global Bid to Make It More Attractive to Noncontrolling Shareholders

After months of on-again-off-again haggling, Skydance Media submitted a newly revised offer for Paramount Global. The revised bid would reduce the amount Skydance and its financial partners would pay Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, and reallocate that more equitably to the company’s nonvoting Class B shareholders, Variety has confirmed. Skydance would also put in more cash upfront to swing the deal, sources said.

The special committee established by Paramount’s board is currently reviewing Skydance’s revised proposal, sources said. Reps for Skydance and Paramount Global declined to comment. Reps for NAI and the Paramount board’s special committee did not respond to requests for comment. Skydance’s sweetened offer for Paramount was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The broad outlines remain the same on the offer from Skydance, headed by producer David Ellison, and financial backers RedBird Capital Partners and KKR. Redstone would sell her stake in National Amusements Inc., which holds 77% of the voting shares in Paramount Global, to Skydance, whereupon Skydance would merge with Paramount Global in an all-stock deal that would value Skydance at around $5 billion. Paramount Global would remain a publicly traded company.

Under the previous Skydance offer, Redstone was to have received up to $2 billion for her NAI stake while Skydance was to provide an additional $3 billion cash infusion to the company. Sources did not have details on how much additional upfront cash Skydance is willing to commit or how much of the capital would be reallocated to Paramount Global’s Class B shareholders under the revised offer.

Meanwhile, Sony Pictures and private-equity giant Apollo Global Management emerged as prospective bidders for Paramount Global but have since backed off their $26 billion all-cash offer to buy the entire company, the New York Times reported. The Sony-Apollo bid would face a number of regulatory hurdles, including requiring a separate ownership structure for CBS’s owned TV stations.

If it goes through, the Skydance pact would mark the end of the Redstone family’s decades-long control over Paramount Pictures, CBS and Viacom. Redstone, nonexecutive chair of Paramount Global, had entered into an exclusive negotiating period with Skydance to sell her stake in National Amusements Inc.; that window lapsed in April but the parties continued to keep the talks alive.

Paramount and Skydance have worked together for more than a decade as partners on “Mission: Impossible” and “Transformers” franchise movies as well as 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Paramount Global’s assets include Paramount Pictures; the CBS network and owned local stations; cable networks including Comedy Central, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon; and the direct-to-streaming business housing Paramount+ and Pluto TV.

Pictured above: Shari Redstone; David Ellison, CEO of Skydance Media