Shari Redstone’s National Amusements Scraps Skydance-Paramount Merger | Report

Shari Redstone has decided to end talks with David Ellison’s Skydance Media for a merger deal involving Paramount Global, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The outlet reports that Redstone will likely pursue a sale of solely National Amusements, which controls 77% of the voting stock of the media conglomerate.

NAI has received interest from an investor consortium led by “Baby Geniuses” producer Steven Paul, an individual familiar with the matter previously told TheWrap. Additionally, the Journal reported that former Warner Music Group CEO and chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Bain Capital are eyeing a bid for National Amusements.

Representatives for National Amusements did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment. Skydance declined to comment.

The decision comes after months of negotiation with Skydance, who proposed a two-step deal that would’ve seen the studio acquire National Amusements before merging itself with Paramount to form a combined company.

Paramount’s independent special committee evaluating bids had previously recommended the Skydance’s latest revised offer in May, which aimed to make the deal more equitable for the media conglomerate’s class B shareholders. Those investors argued that the bid was prioritizing Redstone at the expense of the rest of the company’s investors.

The committee was scheduled to hold a documentation vote on the deal on Tuesday, though it’s unclear if that happened, according to the Journal. While the two parties agreed to the deal terms last week, the New York Times reported that Redstone was seeking

More to come…

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