Skydance will merge with Paramount and invest around $8bn into the company. The Paramount chair, Shari Redstone, whose father, Sumner, bought the company in 1994, has given the green light to the sale of the family’s controlling stake in the company behind classic films such as The Godfather, Titanic and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Paramount also owns the television network CBS and channels including MTV, Nickelodeon and the UK’s Channel 5.
Paramount and Skydance squeak closer to merger deal
The deal, which values the company at $28bn (£22bn), brings an end to more than six months of negotiations.
Skydance has agreed to invest $8bn into the new company as part of the merger deal. Skydance will then pay a further $2.4bn to buy National Amusements, the Redstone-owned theatre movie operator that holds nearly 80% of voting shares in Paramount.
The agreement comes four years after the death of Sumner Redstone, whose company Viacom bought Paramount Pictures three decades ago in a deal worth $10bn.
Shari Redstone had pulled the plug on advanced talks with Skydance Media last month. National Amusements, her company, said the two sides had been unable to reach mutually acceptable terms.
Last week, however, Skydance and Redstone were said to have reached a preliminary deal.
Skydance, the production group, is led by the producer David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, the tech tycoon who co-founded Oracle. It assembled a consortium of investors to buy National Amusements, and then merge with Paramount.
