With minutes remaining in a shortened trading session ahead of the Independence Day holiday, Paramount Global shares were up by 6.6% to $11.44 on the news that David Ellison’s Skydance Media has reached a preliminary agreement to buy National Amusements for $1.75 billion.
NAI would then be merged with Paramount, completing a transaction that has been in the works for months and at one point in the recent past appeared dead.
According to The Wall Street Journal, NAI, which owns about 77% of the voting shares of Paramount, referred the new Skydance proposal to a special committee of Paramount directors for review.
A 45-day “go-shop period” in which other interested Paramount bidders can make offers for the company is agreed to by both parties.
Under the new preliminary deal, WSJ reports, NAI will not insist that the Paramount merger be approved by a majority of non-Redstone shareholders. This was a problematic matter in previous discussions involving Skydance, which all but killed the dealmaking and negotiations.
