Skydance wins battle of the billionaires for control of Paramount

Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Seagram’s scion, has bowed out of the battle to buy Paramount. The billionaire (and former Warner Music Group CEO) made an offer to compete with the tentative deal made to merge the entertainment company with Skydance, owned by David Ellison (son of billionaire Larry Ellison). Now it’s one less rich guy in the mix and a clear path for Ellison the younger to assume the mantle of CEO for the legacy studio. 

“Tonight, our bidding group informed the special committee that we will be exiting the go-shop process. It was a privilege to have the opportunity to participate,” Bronfman said in a statement on Monday evening (via Deadline). “We continue to believe that Paramount Global is an extraordinary company, with an unrivaled collection of marquee brands, assets and people. While there may have been differences, we believe that everyone involved in the sale process is united in the belief that Paramount’s best days are ahead. We congratulate the Skydance team and thank the special committee and the Redstone family for their engagement during the go-shop process.”

Bronfman’s concession speech comes after he upped his offer from $4.3 billion to a clean $6 billion, according to Deadline. He was backed by a group of 20 investors, though a few of them (like former child actor/crypto king Brock Pierce and Kazakh businessman Nurali Aliyev, per Deadline) dropped out before the end. The Bronfman offer was attractive because it wouldn’t include a merger that would dilute existing investors’ shares. However, some reports indicated that Shari Redstone—currently Paramount’s controlling shareholder, and the person with final say on a deal—preferred Ellison as the future leader of the company. 

Technically, Paramount is still in the “go-shop” period until September 5, so another really rich guy (or a consortium of investors, or another company, etc.) could still put in an offer so long as it’s competitive with what’s already on the table. But based on the reporting around the Bronfman deal, entertaining another offer could seriously jeopardize the situation with Skydance. Paramount and Skydance already had a couple of false starts—the deal fell through completely earlier in the summer—and according to Deadline, last week Skydance lawyers accused Paramount of breaching the terms of the merger agreement. Redstone probably doesn’t want to rock the boat with Skydance any further and end up with no deals when Paramount stock is in freefall. So all that’s left is regulatory approval for the merger, which is expected to go forward without any obstacles. It looks like Skydance is going to walk away from this one victorious.