A Private Equity Giant Offers to Buy Paramount For $11B As Bidding War Heats Up
Another company has put in a bid for Paramount Global. Apollo Global Management (APO), a private equity firm, has offered $11 billion yesterday (Mar. 20) to take over the media and entertainment giant owned by National Amusements, The Wall Street Journal first reported. Even though Paramount’s stock rose 11 percent on the news of Apollo’s interest, it doesn’t look like the excitement will be reflected by Paramount’s decision makers.
Axios reported last week that Apollo had jumped in on the sale talks and that the firm was only considering buying Paramount and not its parent company National Amusements Inc, which is also looking a buyer. According to the Financial Times, Shari Redstone, president of National Amusements and Paramount’s controlling shareholder, is unlikely to entertain the offer from Apollo. Instead, she is more seriously considering an offer by Skydance Media, which was officially made in January. Skydance, in partnership with RedBird Capital, offered to buy “a majority stake” in National Amusements, but it’s unclear how much their bid was.
Redstone’s apparent rejection of the deal tempered Paramount’s stock, as shares fell 5 percent today. The Hollywood studio currently has a market cap of $8.24 billion.
Apollo is just one of a few companies circling Paramount. Besides Skydance, media mogul Byron Allen, the owner of Allen Media Group, has also thrown his hat in the ring, offering to buy Paramount for $14 billion plus its $15 billion of debt.
Even Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav reportedly met with Paramount CEO Bob Bakish in December 2023 to talk about a merger. However, WBD apparently halted merger talks at the end of last month.
Apollo’s offer comes at a time where Paramount is executing some cost cutting measures as a part of its goals for the year. In February the company laid off 800 or 3 percent of its global staff. CEOBakish outlined in a memo in January that job cuts were coming, though he did not specify how many people would be affected throughout the year or how many rounds of layoffs the company had planned.