I’m a big fan and subscriber to Paramount+ streaming services, and some of the movies and tv shows they’ve made over the years including the Mission: Impossible series, both Top Gun movies, and ALL of the Star Trek series and movies.
The thing is, streaming is hard. If services like Disney+ have struggled to reach profitability, what hope do smaller and less well financed companies like Paramount have?
So it shouldn’t be surprising that there’s news of Paramount putting itself up for sale, for the right price of course. As will all things, the almighty dollar will be the ultimate influencer on any deal.
Shari Redstone, daughter of her father Summer Redstone, is Paramount’s controlling shareholder, and she hasn’t been shy about being open to a big deal if one were to come along.
The company has a market cap of about $10.4 billion, but also has a long-term debt load of $15.6 billion, so for those of you math challenged that’s not a great position to be in, but it’s also not uncommon. So any deal would need to include the assumption of that debt.
Enter news that Skydance and RedBird Capital were exploring potentially taking over the media giant.
Will a deal be made? Good question, but the assets Paramount owns could be very attractive to investors, especially a certain Disney who has a track record of taking iconic movie franchises like Star Wars and Marvel and turning them into box-office juggernauts.
Paramount shares jump after reports of takeover interest