In This Article:
Paramount Global (PARA) is extending its "go-shop" window after media mogul Edgar Bronfman Jr. raised his bid on Paramount parent company National Amusements to $6 billion. Bronfman previously served as the chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group (WMG) and is currently the executive chairman of FuboTV (FUBO).
Yahoo Finance senior entertainment reporter Alexandra Canal explores the known details of Bronfman's proposal.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts.
This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Well, the battle for Paramount continuing as Edward Bronfman Jr. submitting a revised offer to take over the company. Now this coming after Paramount already accepted an offer from David Ellison's Skydance Media. You're seeing some gains in Paramount stock here today. Not much movement though. Up just about two tenths of a percent. Senior reporter Alexandra Canal joining us now with the details on that latest offer. Ally.
Hey Shauna. Yes, we have a new bid from Bronfman. As Paramount Special Committee board officially extended the go shop period by another 15 days as they assess this new offer. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bronfman has sweetened his bid to 6 billion for National Amusements. National Amusements is the holding company that controls Paramount and is operated by the Redstone family. Now, Bronfman's bid reportedly includes a $1.7 billion tender offer, that would give non-voting Paramount shareholders an option to cash out at a premium of $16 a share. Now to compare deals here. David Ellison's roughly $8 billion offer would merge his company Skydance Media with Paramount. It also includes $4 billion to purchase about 50% of Paramount's non-voting shares at 15 bucks a pop. Or investors can choose to roll them into the new company. So at this point, it's really up to the special committee to determine if Bronfman's bid is superior to the bid that they've already accepted from Skydance. Now, Wall Street analysts have said this is all a bit confusing at this point, but someone in the Redstone family might be more interested in this new eleventh hour bid than initially thought. So does it have weight? Maybe. We do know that Skydance has a plan in place for the company that includes cost cuts and a strategy revamp. But remember that this has not been an easy journey. Shari Redstone, she initially called off the Skydance deal back in June. There's also been concerns of lawsuits due to shareholder dilution, which wouldn't be as much of an issue with the Bronfman deal. So lots of twists and turns here. It's clear anything can happen at this point. Paramount shares as you were saying they were up as much as 2% in pre-market trading, but they've since given up some of those gains. So, the hope here at least from the investor standpoint, is that a bidding war will ultimately be a good thing for shareholders, but we'll just have to wait and see.