Shari Redstone (official pic ViacomCBS)
Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm, is just the latest in a long list of possible suitors for Paramount Pictures and the Paramount TV Studios group. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Apollo is offering $11 billion for Paramount.
Paramount’s current market capitalization is only about $7.7 billion.
The days of the great American movie studios standing alongside the American auto industry and others as giants of American capitalism have long since gone. One by one, what were once seven titans, have whittled away. United Artists died, Columbia Pictures is now Sony Pictures and makes a faction of the movies it once did and Fox sold out entirely to Disney.
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Paramount, like Universal Studios, survived by becoming part of a larger conglomerate. It has been part of Viacom and twinned with the CBS television network for decades. But Since Sumner Redstone, Viacom’s and its parent company National Amusements’ founder, died almost four years ago his heir, Shari Redstone, has been interested in unloading Paramount.
The movie business is just not what it used to be.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Skydance Media is considering an all-cash bid for National Amusements, Paramount’s parent company. Skydance is operated by David Ellison, the son of entrepreneur Larry Ellison who founded Oracle computers.
The owner of the Weather Channel Byron Allen recently made a $30 billion bid for all of Paramount Global, not just the studios.
Apollo Global Management is an American alternative asset management firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1990, the firm invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $548 billion of assets under management.
Paramount Global is the company that runs Paramount Studios and its media empire. This includes Paramount Studios, the CBS television network, and many cable channels like MTV. Paramount has been struggling lately and there was talk of a possible merger with another firm.
In December there were reports that Shari Redstone was looking at a merger between Paramount and Warner Bros, which operates the Warner Bros movie studios and cable television networks like CNN and HBO.
