OP
OP
I would appreciate a block. This purchase is useless, WB would have been a much better approach.
Sony Pictures reportedly in talks to buy Paramount. |UP|Sony Makes $26 Billion All-Cash Offer for Paramount.
- Thread starter Eternal_Wings
- Start date
OP
OP
The best outcome would be if the acquisition of Paramount falls through and Sony starts rethinking in investing the cash on their real profitable business: PlayStation
Square, from and Capcom, all games come to pc two years later and require PSN accounts.
Skydance’s Proposed Deal With Paramount Global Appears to Be Falling Apart
UPADTED: After months of M&A talks, Paramount Global and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone might be going it alone after all — for now.Insiders tell Variety that the expectation at the company is that neither of the two offers in play — Skydance Media-RedBird Capital Partners and Sony Pictures Entertainment-Apollo Global Management — will come to fruition. And Redstone is said to have reluctantly concluded that a deal with David Ellison’s Skydance, a longtime partner of Paramount Pictures, will not be possible.
https://variety.com/2024/biz/news/paramount-global-reject-skydance-sony-apollo-offers-1235991298/
Shari Redstone v. Shareholders: What Does Paramount Owe Investors?
Paramount Global was sued by an investor looking for records related to deal talks. The pension fund is concerned Redstone is prioritizing her interests over minority shareholders.Although exclusive talks between Paramount Global and Skydance Media are expected to end without a deal, questions linger about controlling shareholder Shari Redstone’s duty to minority investors, some of whom have vocally opposed the merger on grounds that their interests have taken a backseat in negotiations.
A Paramount investor, in a complaint filed on April 30 in Delaware Chancery Court, moved to force the company to turn over records related to talks with David Ellison’s Skydance. The Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island alleged that Redstone has “conflicting interests” undermining the company’s motives to find a better deal than the one offered by Skydance.
The legal move could be a precursor to a lawsuit challenging any potential deal in which common shareholders perceive as enriching Redstone at their expense. It follows several law firms, in the wake of Paramount’s deal talks with Skydance, announcing investigations into whether the agreement would harm minority investors.
Paramount declined to comment.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...-shareholders-paramount-investors-1235890134/
The amount of cash Sony Pictures would pay for Paramount seems to be the same Sony Pictures was going to pay for the failed acquisition of the Indian giant Zee. Pretty likely if they don't acquire Paramount, Sony Pictures will acquire something else with that money.
That was their part for the last 3 years period. SIE had a similar amount that they spent in multiple acquisitions and investments instead of in a single big one.
Later this month they'll announce a new investments+acquisitions+stock repurchases for the next 3 years, which pretty likely will wait to spend until they sell their banks stuff late next year.
Last edited:
OP
OP
No, the thing went from "the Paramount + Skydance merge is almost signed" to "they apparently will analyze other bids instead".
Today ends the exclusive talks with Skydance, meaning talks with Skydance could stop (but also continue).
The major stakeholder wanted to merge with Skydance on its own insterest and against the interest of the minority investors, who were going to get a better deal with the "non oficial" Apollo+Sony offer and also saw better potential synergies with Sony. They also considered they were rushing to accept the Skydance without properly evaluating all the different available options, which is what they are supposed to do. The major stakeholder wasn't happy with the initial Apollo+Sony offer.
The stakeholders are fighting each other and may end in the court, the other day fired the Paramount CEO. May skip the Skydance deal to avoid the court.
Meanwhile, non-Skydance people (like Sony, Peacok, etc) will be able to make oficially offers starting today (Sony could make a different official one than the one they hinted), and Paramount's stakeholders would analize and negotiate them, while they also could continue negotiating it with Skydance or not.
I'd bet that unless someone like Disney, Amazon or Apple joins the party making a way better deal, Sony will get it because offering the biggest amount of money, and also potential synergies to improve Paramount's revenue, profitability and value.
It's supposed to be valued in $22B and Sony offers $26B (+ to pay their 15B debt), so they already are making a good offer. Someone like Amazon, Apple or some investor could offer a bit more, but they wouldn't provide the additional synergies Sony offers.
Last edited:
OP
OP
I wonder if Microsoft will also attempt to bid?
Last year occurred the news Microsoft would be interested in a buy of Paramount.
www.levelup.com
Last year occurred the news Microsoft would be interested in a buy of Paramount.
Paramount won't be owned by Microsoft, but a significant merger may be on the horizon | LevelUp
Two major players would join forces to compete against Netflix and Disney+
www.levelup.com
The initial offer from Apollo was from Apollo alone; the second offer was when they brought on Sony to be partners
Yes. Apollo's plan was to buy it and later sell it to Sony. Now is to make a joint acquisition with Sony and some time later sell Sony their part.
Why not McDonalds?I wonder if Microsoft will also attempt to bid?
Last year occurred the news Microsoft would be interested in a buy of Paramount.
Paramount won't be owned by Microsoft, but a significant merger may be on the horizon | LevelUp
Two major players would join forces to compete against Netflix and Disney+
OP
OP
Newyork Times reporting:
"After letting exclusive talks with the movie studio Skydance lapse, Paramount’s directors met over the weekend and decided to negotiate with all the suitors.
Paramount has decided to formally open negotiations with a bidding group led by Sony Pictures Entertainment and the private equity giant Apollo.
Sony and Apollo’s all cash offer has been supported by many shareholders as an alternate to a merger with Skydance.
Under the terms currently being contemplated in the Sony Apollo tie up, Sony would be a controlling shareholder, with Apollo owning a minority stake, according to the two people familiar with the bidders strategy. Sony executives have discussed operating the Paramount studio as a division of their larger empire, uniting the studios behind the "Spider Man" and "Mission Impossible" franchises and combining their theatrical marketing and distribution operations."
Source
"After letting exclusive talks with the movie studio Skydance lapse, Paramount’s directors met over the weekend and decided to negotiate with all the suitors.
Paramount has decided to formally open negotiations with a bidding group led by Sony Pictures Entertainment and the private equity giant Apollo.
Sony and Apollo’s all cash offer has been supported by many shareholders as an alternate to a merger with Skydance.
Under the terms currently being contemplated in the Sony Apollo tie up, Sony would be a controlling shareholder, with Apollo owning a minority stake, according to the two people familiar with the bidders strategy. Sony executives have discussed operating the Paramount studio as a division of their larger empire, uniting the studios behind the "Spider Man" and "Mission Impossible" franchises and combining their theatrical marketing and distribution operations."
Source
Yes, Paramount Global makes consistently $30B in revenue and $10B in gross profit per year. Plus has a gazillion movies, tv shows, tv channels, services, IPs, etc.
On top of that, Sony acquiring them would make them market leaders in pictures.
Paramount has huge operational costs since their merge 5 years ago that are eating all their profits. Acquiring them, many of these things would be handled instead by people already doing this for Sony movies, tv shows, channels or services. And well, very likely Paramount already has a ton of redundancies across their different divisions and subsidiaries.
Sony could axe a ton of these redundancies and costs. Yes, and fire a ton of people. But would make them much more profitable. Plus could provide to this content a lot of new distribution channels and IPs to use, or use these IPs in other places. So would help them create a lot more revenue and profit.
It would also bump Sony Pictures (and in a minor scale Sony Music, because Paramount also has music and MTV) revenue, profit and market power. This bump will be way more important and in a way bigger scale than the acquisitions of Square, Capcom, CD Projekt, Kadokawa or others that have been mentioned. Even Nintendo, and even the combination of them.
It woudn't even come close lol
We talking about a historical film studio.
Columbia + Paramount would create a giant in content that any other conpany would kill for.
And I doubt Sony wants to keep Paramount +
A service with 70 million paying users every month. They could sell to Universal for them to merge with Peacock.
Without a streaming service, Sony can produce and sell content to Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney....
Plus this would make Sony have the rights to champions league, NFL games, The Majors.
Last edited:
I'd wouldn't mind if this happened, but theres still a decent chance it doesnt, Redstone which is the controlling shareholder still seems to prefer Skydance merger and investors seem to want to pursue legal action if any of the 2 happen, according to the article.
But there must be something to it since they approved the talks, Sony unfortunately won't be able to own CBS, even if it happens and passes regulatory process.
But there must be something to it since they approved the talks, Sony unfortunately won't be able to own CBS, even if it happens and passes regulatory process.
10 billion dollars in gross profit every year, 30 billions in revenue sounds really nice (?)
I saw that they weren't doing great in terms of actual earnings though they went negetive, so I'm assuming there will be layoffs.
But that gross profit looks enticing for sure, if Sony can convert that into actual operating income.
Yes, they are historical: Paramount is 100 years old. The thing is that Paramount now includes CBS, which can't be sold to a non-US company: seems Apollo would keep the CBS/US tv related rights and Sony would keep the rest.It woudn't even come close lol
We talking about a historical film studio.
Columbia + Paramount would create a giant in content that any other conpany would kill for.
And I doubt Sony wants to keep Paramount +
A service with 70 million paying users every month. They could sell to Universal for them to merge with Peacock.
Without a streaming service, Sony can produce and sell content to Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney....
Plus this would make Sony have the rights to champions league, NFL games, The Majors.
Regarding paid tv channels/cable channels/streaming services both Paramount and Sony own multiple of them. Independently if Sony acquires them or not, if I was Sony I'd merge all of their movie / tv series / tv shows / tv channels / documentaries / animation / anime content in a single service where you can buy or rent them individually, or to have different subscriptions (let's say you want to subscribe only to the anime, or to a specific paid tv, or Netflix-like a movies & tv series subscription, or a more expensive sub with everything.
And on top of that service, to continue also providing material to Netflix etc. at least until that service becomes very important. The idea would be to make it stronger joining forces with many different things they have separetedly (Paramount Plus, Pluto, Nickelodeon, MTV, Crunchyroll, Sony Pictures Core, etc) and to throw there a ton of movies and tv shows/tv series (mostly old) they have but now aren't available in any streaming services.
Yes, in the last half a decade or so they had consistently around $10B in gross profits. But then removing from there their operating costs, it goes to basically zero (little loses or profits) for every year. On top of that, Paramount has a debt of $15B.
Meaning, they have a solid business but needs a huge optimization cutting costs to improve their profitability. The thing is Sony already does most of the things they do, so can optimize a ton of these costs. Meaning, distribution rights of movies, and making deals to put them on tvs or streaming services is something Sony already does. Or managing production of movies, or cinemas, etc.
Meaning, whoever buys them on top of paying the acquisition (let's say the mentioned $26B) they'll also get that debt that will have to pay. So the total cost of the acquisition would be minimum $41B. Plus add on top acquisition related costs like retention bonuses for some key people, integration costs like paying the compensations for thousands of people who very likely are going to fire, etc.
Sony or whoever acquires them will have to cut a lot of fat, but there's a huge business there.
Last edited:
Sony's japanese leaders keep throwing good money after bad.
S&P said that Paramount's free cash flow is expected to remain below 10% of debt beyond 2025, and cut Paramount's credit rating into junk territory.
Meanwhile, Berkshire Hathaway sold its entire Paramount stake at a loss.
Profits are an opinion, cash is a fact.
G&NS is their only reliable cash cow since 2013, and, on top of that, their fastest growing segment, and , yet, the japanese executives keep betting against PS, thus hindering Sony Group ability to generate cash flow.
SIE has so far managed to overcome the lack of funding, but for how long can that go on?