Skydance Slams ‘Unserious’ Rival Bidders for Paramount as Trying to ‘Hijack’ FCC Proceeding
variety.comTodd Spangler NY Digital Editor The deal that would merge Skydance Media and Paramount Global is not over the finish line — and now lawyers for David Ellison’s Skydance are trying to fend off efforts by a group of investors to force Paramount to evaluate a higher $13.5 billion takeover offer.
As first reported by Variety, in January an investor consortium calling itself Project Rise Partners submitted a letter to Paramount’s board with an offer it said was superior to the $8 billion bid from Skydance and RedBird Capital Partners (and backed by Oracle founder Larry Ellison, father of David Ellison).
The special committee established by the Paramount board to evaluate M&A rejected Project Rise’s proposal. Last month, lawyers for New York City pension funds filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Skydance-Paramount transaction, alleging Paramount (specifically, controlling shareholder Shari Redstone) failed to get maximum value from a sale for other investors by refusing to consider Project Rise’s $13.5 billion bid.
A judge in the case, being heard in the Delaware Court of Chancery, last week agreed to accelerate the timeline for the lawsuit to proceed.
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