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Media mogul Edgar Bronfman, Jr. has officially submitted his bid to acquire Paramount Global (PARA) to its parent company National Amusements, according to the Wall Street Journal. Bronfman previously served as the chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group (WMG) and is currently the chairman of FuboTV (FUBO).
Yahoo Finance senior entertainment reporter Alexandra Canal weighs in on Bronfman's $4.3 billion bid to rival the offer from David Ellison's Skydance Media amid the "go-shop" window allotted for Paramount to close on any deal.
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This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Paramount, another stock that we're watching this morning. Media executive Edgar Edgar Bronfman Jr. has submitted a 4.3 billion dollar offer for Shari Redstone's National Amusements. Now this is according to the Wall Street Journal. This despite Redstone having already agreed to sell National Amusements to David Ellison's Skydance Media. Alexandra Canal joins us more with the details. Ally.
Hi, Seana. Yes, an 11th hour bid here from Bronfman since that 45-day go shop period officially expires tomorrow. You mentioned 4.3 billion, it's going to go through National Amusements, which is the holding company that controls Paramount. Bronfman's offer reportedly includes $2.4 billion in debt and equity for National Amusements. He would also contribute 1.5 billion to Paramount's balance sheet, which could be used to pare down debt. But he will have to pay a $400 million fee to Skydance Media if that deal goes through. So that's a breakup fee is what it's being referred to. So the big question here is whether or not it can happen. If you take a look at Bronfman's track record as an executive, he's currently executive chairman at Fubo TV. That's been in the news a lot lately, has faced its own stumbles. But Bronfman also was CEO and chairman at Warner Music Group. He's had stints at Seagram, Universal, among others. So he is this experienced and seasoned executive within this industry. Whether or not Shari Redstone is going to prefer this deal over the Skydance deal, that remains to be seen. But we do know that Shari Redstone's relationship with Skydance has somewhat deteriorated over the past six months. It wasn't too long ago that Shari actually walked away from the Skydance deal. Um, that being said though, a lot of media watchers think that Skydance actually overpaid for Paramount at this point. And and look, you have to remember that this is a company that she fought tooth and nail to get following the death of her father. So this is something she holds near and dear to her heart. She wants to make sure she has the best offer. There's some chatter out there that if the independent special board committee says that the Skydance deal is preferable over this Bronfman deal, maybe that could lead to less shareholder lawsuits. So there's a lot of play here. We don't know everything that's going on under the hood. I think it would take a lot to eliminate the Skydance deal entirely since they've already laid out their strategic vision. And you have to remember too, I mean, this is a company that has a lot of debt. We have those declining linear cable businesses. What's Bronfman going to do with those CBS stations? So there's just a lot of overarching questions here that is is scratching a lot of heads out there in Hollywood. So it's it's one of those things that we're going to have to wait and see.
All right. Yahoo Finance's own Alex Canal breaking down all things, the saga of Paramount. Yeah.
Never ending. I thought it was over with this story.
Yeah, we've crossed administrations at this point.