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No Deal: Shari Redstone Ends Talks On Skydance Offer for Paramount Global
(www.hollywoodreporter.com)
Some interesting stuff in this article.
It looks like Skydance thought that getting the non-voting class B Paramount shareholders on board would put pressure on the voting ones.
But it seems like Redstone was sensitive to the minority group of voting shareholders and that they were not on side. That is, it wasn’t enough to have the Redstones as the majority holders of class A NAI shares, and the majority of non-voting class B Paramount shareholders, Shari Redstone felt she had to have sufficient support from the minority of voting NAI shareholders to avoid problems such as accusations of imposing losses on a group.
“According to a source familiar with the talks, Redstone’s request for a “majority of the minority” vote, in which other Class A shareholders could vote to approve or nix the deal, was a nonstarter for Skydance, and the studio was anticipating a regulatory review of more than a year, which gave Redstone pause given the constraints it would have required of the business in the meantime.”