Paramount Global is in talks about opening its books to Sony Pictures and Apollo Global Management to sell the US entertainment company.
Advisers representing Paramount and Sony are setting their deals to increase the confidentiality of information passed. This deal would solidify Sony’s and Apollo’s $26 billion offer. This will strongly challenge the bid from David Ellison’s Skydance Media.
Paramount had a special committee on its board, evaluating the company’s options, which gave Skydance a specific time to lapse their deal discussions. The sources will remain anonymous and do not guarantee that the deal will come through.
Sony Pictures’ chairman Tony Vinciquerra had approached Paramount Global’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, to acquire the company years ago, however, Redstone wasn’t interested in breaking up the company.
Since that time Sony Pictures has been expanding its horizon through films, music, and TV productions. Now Sony has 3,500 movies under their belt, including franchises like Jumanji, Resident Evil, and James Bond. Paramount also has movies like Star Trek, Top Gun, and The Godfather. Combining them will create a Hollywood studio with the box office heft of Universal Studios or Walt Disney Studios.
A tie-up between Sony and Paramount would give it a 20.5% share of the North American box office. Skydance’s proposal is a complicated one with it paying roughly $2 billion to acquire the Redstone family’s holding company, National Amusements, which holds 77% of Paramount’s class-A voting stock. Paramount would then acquire Skydance in an all-stock transaction worth around $5 billion.