Paramount and Skydance could be merging after all. In a huge twist just before the July 4 holiday, David Ellison’s Skydance Media has reached a preliminary agreement with Shari Redstone to buy the holding company National Amusements and in turn merge Paramount Global with Skydance, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times . It wasn’t more than a couple weeks ago that talks between Redstone and Skydance fell apart at the finish line.
Skydance sounded like it had moved on . Just yesterday, a new bidder emerged, billionaire Barry Diller. The craziest saga in M&A corporate Hollywood news keeps getting crazier.
According to WSJ, Skydance would pay $1.75 billion to buy National Amusements (NAI) after IndieWire previously reported Skydance was set to pay $2 billion for NAI as part of $8 billion overall . It’s unclear what the other terms of the merger are.
NAI also isn’t demanding a vote that the deal be approved by majority shareholders, which held up the deal the last time. What’s more, Skydance and National Amusements have also agreed to a 45-day “go-shop period” so that other buyers can jump in. Prepare for more craziness.
Reps for Paramount Global declined to comment. Reps for Skydance and NAI did not immediately respond to IndieWire’s request for comment. Earlier today, talks surrounding the sale of Paramount’s BET assets perked up, with Bloomberg reporting BET’s current CEO Scott Ellis along with private equity firm CC Capital.
