Shari Redstone, president of National Amusements, speaks at the WSJ Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, on October 21, 2019.
Mike Blake | Reuters
David Ellison’s Skydance has reached a preliminary agreement with Shari Redstone’s National Amusements to merge with SupremeAccording to two people who understand this issue, reviving a The deal fell through just a few weeks ago..
Controlling shareholder National Entertainment transferred the agreement to Paramount Special CommitteeParamount’s special committee is currently reviewing and voting on the deal, according to a person familiar with the matter. A Paramount spokesman declined to comment.
Paramount shares jumped as much as 9% on the news.
The revived deal would see Redstone receive a reduced consideration of $1.75 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. Other financial terms of the deal, which CNBC previously reported, would remain unchanged: Skydance would buy back about half of Paramount’s controlling stake at $15 a share, for a $4.5 billion valuation and contribute $1.5 billion to Paramount’s balance sheet.
Redstone pulled out of her initial bid in June as it neared the finish line. One of Redstone’s reasons was that she felt Skydance had renegotiated the deal by asking her to take hundreds of millions of dollars less than the previously agreed-upon payment, according to one of the people.
The tortuous dealmaking process led to the departure of CEO Bob Bakish earlier this year, leaving a three-person CEO office to run the company. Other interested bidders include joint effort from private equity firm Apollo and Sonyas well as one recent plea from Barry Diller, chairman of the media group IAC as well as a former Paramount executive.
The first preliminary agreement was reported by New York Times And The Wall Street Journal.
— CNBC’s Julia Boorstin contributed to this report.
