The production company behind it Top Gun: Maverick could rise to the highest of Paramount’s content mountain.
Skydance Media, the production studio owned by Larry Ellison’s son David, is in advanced negotiations to amass a big stake in Paramount Global. The exact nature of the deal has not yet been determined, including whether or not Skydance and its private equity backers RedBird Capital Partners and KKR will take a majority stake. But talks between the 2 sides are progressing quickly after Skydance and Paramount enter into an agreement to carry exclusive discussions last week.
If the deal goes through, it could cement David Ellison’s raise as a Hollywood power player.
For an upstart like Skydance, buying Paramount Global is normally considered one ailing company, would mean a coup. Skydance would own Paramount’s fabled library, which is what matters The Godfather And Titanicall the CBS brand and its worthwhile news portal, several cable channels similar to Nickelodeon and Comedy Central in addition to a streaming service 67 million subscribers on Paramount+. The completion of the deal would announce that the rich son of the ninth richest man on this planet– who would still provide a number of the capital needed to finance the deal – can have really made it in Hollywood.
Ellison first appeared within the film business as a fresh-faced 23-year-old who many studios and executives desired to lure away for some money. Instead, he took his family’s money and used it to construct a successful company that developed a long-standing relationship with Tom Cruise, produced dozens of movies and, most recently, ventured into video games. Now Ellison is able to make a deal for either of them dying embers of the Golden Age of Hollywood in Paramount Global.
Paramount and KKR declined to comment. RedBird and Skydance didn’t reply to a request for comment.
The current framework of the deal could be structured in order that Skydance Group would acquire Shari Redstone’s holding company National Amusements, which controls about 77% of Paramount Global’s voting shares, but significantly lower than 10% of its total capital. Skydance and Redstone have already got an agreement in principle, after to Bloomberg. The deal would see Skydance and its partners pay over $2 billion for National Amusements, effectively giving them control of Paramount. They are also in discussions to buy a certain variety of common shares. The combined variety of shares would give Skydance and its partners control of about 45% to simply over 50% of Paramount, in response to the filing CNBC.
On Thursday, it seemed as if negotiations between the 2 groups were gaining momentum. Paramount and Skydance executives are scheduled to satisfy sometime next week, in response to a CNBC report on Thursday as investment firm RedBird, a specialist within the media sector, will begin due diligence on Paramount.
Skydance would then merge with Paramount Global. In that case, the brand new company could be led by Ellison, taking up a senior role for former NBCUniversal president and current RedBird CEO Jeff Snell.
Ellison and Paramount have a longstanding relationship. When the young scion was just getting a foothold in Hollywood, he financed and produced several Paramount movies, including Star Trek and Mission Impossible movies. Eventually he became self-employed and founded Skydance in 2010. Since then, the corporate has produced several major hits including Top Gun: Maverick And Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One.
Earlier It’s hard to eliminate the wealthy kid aura, Ellison said. “There was a time when people only saw us as money, and we knew that,” Ellison said told The New York Times in 2021. “But there has been a shift. Our content, ideas and implementation have become more important than our capital.”
Since then, Skydance has expanded to incorporate animation, video games and VR content. It has also began to attract a few of the very best talent within the industry. The animation department is headed by John Lassetera person who already is trusted with Silicon Valley’s encroachment on Hollywood and the founding of Pixar next to Steve Jobs. Cruise, who has worked with Skydance on several projects, praised Ellison effusively in 2015 GQ profile. Skydance’s video game division has secured licenses for major IP franchises like Marvel and Star Wars.
If Skydance succeeds in acquiring Paramount Global, it could not only be a private triumph for Ellison, but in addition a business triumph for an independent film studio that struck a cope with a legacy media company as a buyer relatively than a seller. Throughout the history of the entertainment industry, successful independent firms have often been acquired by the giants that dominated the industry. One has to have a look at Pixar, where Lasseter made his name and which was bought by Disney in 2006 for $7.4 billion. Skydance could even have been bought by a technology company, just as Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion in 2021.
Whether or not a Skydance deal represents the very best option for Paramount shareholders stays to be determined. Paramount had an independent committee consisting of eight of its 11 board members tasked with finding the very best possible deal for the corporate. On Thursday, three people sat on that committee together with one other board member left their directorships. There at the moment are several shareholders within the arms in regards to the deal and preparing for a possible boardroom showdown. If the deal falls through, Redstone and Paramount’s board can have to settle for an additional deal, which appears to be a hit in the meanwhile 26 billion dollars Cash offer from private equity firm Apollo.
