The billionaire Barry Diller is exploring a bid to take management of Paramount, the guardian firm of CBS, MTV and Nickelodeon, based on 4 individuals with data of the matter.
Mr. Diller’s digital-media conglomerate, IAC, has signed nondisclosure agreements with National Amusements, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, the individuals stated. Nondisclosure agreements are a key step in deal making, permitting either side to alternate confidential data.
Mr. Diller’s curiosity in Paramount is the most recent twist in some of the complicated — and dramatic — efforts to promote a media firm in a number of years. Paramount reached the brink of a deal in current months with Skydance, a Hollywood studio, earlier than talks abruptly fell aside.
The nondisclosure agreements had been signed someday after the potential deal between Paramount and Skydance fell by means of in June, two of the individuals stated.
It’s unclear how far alongside the talks between IAC and National Amusements are. Others have additionally expressed curiosity in buying National Amusements, together with the media and finance government Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Steven Paul, the Hollywood government greatest identified for his work on the “Baby Geniuses” franchise.
A bid to take management of Paramount can be a coda of kinds for Mr. Diller, 82, who tried to amass Paramount Pictures within the early ’90s. He was outbid by Sumner Redstone, the bellicose media mogul whose daughter, Shari, now controls the corporate.
Mr. Diller was named head of Paramount Pictures in 1974 on the age of 32. He was credited with rejuvenating the studio, creating a cadre of proficient lieutenants, like the longer term Disney chief government Michael Eisner and the studio wunderkind Jeffrey Katzenberg, that turned referred to as the Killer Dillers.
After Mr. Redstone outbid him for the corporate, Mr. Diller set his sights on persevering with to construct his new media empire, hanging a sequence of audacious offers to develop IAC.
“They gained,” Mr. Diller stated in a press release after shedding out to Mr. Redstone. “We misplaced. Next.”
National Amusements started exploring potential offers final yr. As a part of its talks with Skydance, Shari Redstone, the biggest shareholder at National Amusements, would promote the corporate to Skydance, whereas Paramount would merge with Skydance by means of a separate transaction. That deal was scuttled after they may not agree on noneconomic phrases after important shareholder pushback.
By buying National Amusements, a purchaser would get management of Paramount — and its helpful studio library — with out having to strike a deal to amass the corporate outright. But it will additionally imply taking management of an asset with important liabilities, together with roughly $14 billion in debt and cable companies dealing with important headwinds.
