Last week, Skydance Media jazzed up its offer to Paramount Global, proposing to buy a select number of non-voting shares at $15 each, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Sunday scoop. This move values Paramount B-shares at a juicy 26% premium over Friday’s closing price.
A special committee from Paramount’s board has given a thumbs-up to Skydance’s sweetened proposal, as the Journal separately reported on Friday. The revamped offer promises better terms for both voting and non-voting shareholders and sweetens the pot with more cash, a source revealed to Reuters on Thursday.
Parent company National Amusements is insisting that Skydance include legal safeguards in case of lawsuits, the New York Times noted on Sunday. It’s still up in the air whether Paramount will get a “go-shop” period to seek out a better offer or proceed directly to a shareholder vote on the Skydance deal.
In the meantime, Skydance has committed a cool $1.5 billion to help chip away at Paramount’s debt, the Times added. Both Paramount and Skydance have kept mum on the media reports, with Skydance not immediately responding to Reuters’ request for comments.
After months of negotiation, Skydance has danced its way to the forefront, although a late-entry rival—Sony Pictures Entertainment, teamed up with Apollo Global Management—briefly threw a spanner in the works with a $26 billion all-cash bid. However, they’ve since scaled back to a more modest proposal, leaving Skydance in the spotlight.