Entertainment
Redstone Ends Discussions With Skydance Media Over Merger
- Redstone will try to pursue deal for family holding company
- Redstone had recommended Ellison’s deal just months ago
This article is for subscribers only.
Paramount Global Chair Shari Redstone has walked away from an offer to merge her family’s media company with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, ending months of tense negotiations that would have capped the Redstones’ decades-long run atop the owner of CBS and MTV.
A special committee of the board met on Tuesday to discuss a complicated deal proposed by Ellison, which would have seen Redstone sell him her family’s National Amusements Inc., the holding company that controls 77% of the Paramount voting stock. But before the meeting was over, representatives for Redstone informed the committee that NAI had not come to a deal with Skydance, a dramatic reversal considering Redstone’s initial support.