Will Shari Redstone Finally Let Go?
After fighting fiercely to control her father's empire and become a Hollywood player, she is on the edge of ending the tortured sale of Paramount
Shari Redstone is a lot like her dad, and it’s not just the (once) ginger hair and angular face.
In late March 1979, Sumner Redstone famously survived an arson fire at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston by hanging on to the windowsill of his room until Beantown’s Bravest rescued him. He was so badly burned that he had to endure dozens of surgeries. But he never let go.
Sumner had a mangled hand to remind him of that awful night, and perhaps it also encouraged him to think that he would never die. He clung to control of National Amusements, the parent company of what is now Paramount Global, deep into his nineties despite deteriorating health and cognition and a series of much younger gal pals who had more harpoons into the egomaniacal codger than Captain Quint sank into Jaws.
It took years for his only daughter, Shari, to swat away the vultures; best the conniving former CBS chief Les Moonves, who was MeToo-ed out the door; and wind up in the catbird seat.
Her perseverance was probably due to the genetically dispensed determination of her dad, and the steel he put in her back is one reason why despite the billions waved at Paramount by Sony/Apollo Global and Skydance Media/Redbird Capital/KKR, Shari has had a hard time letting go.
But it’s more than genetics.
About four years ago, after Shari took charge of Viacom/CBC (the precursor to Paramount Global), a hedge funding nosing around the company commissioned a research project that centered on her management chops. One of the insiders who was interviewed was someone with intimate knowledge of her thinking.
“Shari is torn between making good financial decisions and the unattractive possibility of being a nobody,” he said. “[She thinks if she sells] ‘No one will call me anymore, no one will care.’”
The insider further suggested that there is no one in the immediate Redstone Family to take charge after Shari.
He also noted that Shari stacked the board with friendly faces, the majority of them women. In fact, Paramount is one of the only Fortune 500 boards in which the males are outnumbered.
Interestingly, one director, Nicole Seligman, spent 15 years at Sony. Another, Charles E. Phillips Jr., is a former president of Oracle who took his marching orders from Larry Ellison, pater of David Ellison, founder and CEO of Skydance.
Young(ish) Ellison now seems to have bested Sony/Apollo after bulking up his original offer (reportedly to about $8 billion total) with more upside for Paramount investors. The original $5 billion Skydance/Redbird/KKR deal raised hackles because it would have enriched Shari, who owns most of National Amusements, and left everyday shareholders with close to butkus. Apparently that prospect didn’t go down well with Shari’s errand-boy CEO, Bob Bakish, whose objections landed him a swift exit (albeit with a sack of about $50 million over his shoulder).
Despite being a nepo baby (like Shari), David Ellison, founder and CEO of Skydance, is no slouch: He has produced a slew of successful films, including Mission:Impossible movies and the 2022 hit Top Gun: Maverick.
Handing the family jewels intact to another nepo baby might sit better with Shari than accepting any new offer from Sony/Apollo, which would likely pick out some gems, sell others, and melt down the gold.
Jitterbugging with Skydance would also be quicker than a slow waltz with Sony/Apollo.
Stories from Reuters and The New York Times on May 17 said Sony/Apollo signed a nondisclosure agreement allowing them a peek at Paramount’s financials. Depending on the structure of any Sony/Apollo offer, if a new one were to be forthcoming after a look at the books, it could face scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Committee of Foreign Investment in the U.S.
The FTC might raise objections because Sony could fold Paramount under its umbrella, thus reducing the number of major Hollywood studios from five to four; FCC action could be triggered by the fact that Apollo already owns a significant number of TV stations through its stake in Cox Media Group and adding Paramount’s outlets would push it over the agency’s ownership limits; and CFIUS might be concerned about Japanese-controlled Sony acquiring CBS, a Paramount property.
The agreement with Skydance on the terms of a deal were not discussed at Paramount’s annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday, and Shari reportedly talked about how the “Office of the CEO” triumvirate she put in place to replace Bakish is working to execute a financial turnaround and drive “value for all our shareholders.”
But there are mounting reasons why Shari might finally take the Skydance money and let go – even if people stop calling her.