Paramount’s Messy Sale Has Been Even Worse Than Twitter’s
The on-off bid for Twitter was tedious, but the drawn-out threat of a sale of Paramount on lopsided terms has provided a different kind of pain.
Shari Redstone, Paramount Global’s controlling shareholder.
Photographer: Bloomberg
If Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter Inc. was a needlessly painful and drawn-out saga, pity shareholders in Paramount Global. The Hollywood studio has been on the block for months, during which time ordinary investors have endured sleepless nights over the prospect they may not receive a customary takeover premium.
The on-off Twitter bid of 2022 showed how a powerful buyer can zig and zag in a loosely policed US merger process. By contrast, the Paramount epic is a cautionary tale about the latitude of a dominant selling shareholder in a company with ownership split between voting and non-voting stock.