☀️ PARAMOUNT: What’s Actually About to Happen

The Great PARAMOUNT Mountain Sale

Well, it’s at least almost sold. Shari Redstone still has 45 days to find another deal 🧐 (until about August 22) — which would also need to incorporate a nice $400M breakup fee check to Larry Ellison & REDBIRD, so let’s — for the love of all things good and holy — assume that this is the deal y’all, unless the Feds somehow find a major issue, or uh Wayne Huizenga Jr. suddenly enters the fray.

Before diving into the particulars of what’s exactly going on here — it’s important to note that this SKYDANCE deal isn’t expected to close until a year from now (Q3 ‘25).

• As CBS is involved in this whole shebang, the Feds certainly will take their time with a look-see.

  • Not that there’s anything particularly troublesome from an FCC license POV, but keep in mind how a regime change next January could come into play.

  • ALTHOUGH: Presumably the Trump Republican administration wouldn’t hold up a Larry Ellison deal — $15M in Republican midterm election money goes a long way.

    • AND: David Ellison has the Dems side covered.

THUS: The Office of the CEO is in charge for at least another year, and can safely start planning the Christmas party — any leads on venues that have 3 equal, separate rooms for 3 different DJs, contact PAR Corp Comms (btw Brian’s already called the hip-hop room).

See ya on the Q2 earnings call next month fellas (and the uh, following 4 calls).

Now, instead of sorting through 26 alerts from the trades in your inbox, each sharing slivers of the various aspects here — I had the wild idea that hey, why not lay it all out in one place and add some key context?

Let’s dive in to take a look at:

• What’s really driving this deal

• Which PAR divisions look steady (and which divisions may want to update their LinkedIns)

• What David Ellison & Jeff Shell are counting on for growth

• How long it took “New PARAMOUNT” leadership on the investors call to even mention the business that represents more than 50% of PARAMOUNT’s current revenues (Hint: It wasn’t in the first 10 minutes), and laying out exactly what Ellison & co. are walking into here come late 2025

• And of course, what’s next