SUCCESSION-ESQUE

Shari Redstone Kills Sale of Paramount’s Parent Company to Skydance

The merger could have brought media titans Jeff Zucker and Jeff Shell back into the mix.

So much for a Paramount sale. The company’s parent company National Amusements has ended sale talks with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, according to The Wall Street Journal. The news came after whispers trickled out for days about CEO Shari Redstone’s consternations over the deal, which would have included the merger of Paramount Global and its various subsidiaries such as CBS, Nickelodeon, and Paramount Pictures with Skydance. The merger would have also likely seen new roles for ex-news executives Jeff Zucker and Jeff Shell, both of whom are involved with Skydance investor RedBird IMI and reportedly staked out new roles in the combined company. The specific reason Redstone killed the deal was unclear, though the Journal reported she was likely to sell off her stake in National Amusements without a merger of the entertainment business. It came a day after former media executive Edgar Bronfman offered more than $2 billion for the stake, according to the Journal.