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Paramount Shareholder Mario Gabelli Is Still Mulling Lawsuit Over Skydance Deal
Mario Gabelli still has not decided whether he'll mount a legal challenge to Skydance Media's merger with Paramount Global.
In an FCC filing, a lawyer representing the Gabelli Value 25 Fund and its affiliated funds, investment advisers and investors requested that the commission “defer resolution” of whether to transfer CBS’s broadcast licenses to the new ownership group comprising Skydance and RedBird Capital Partners until the investment firm has “determined whether to initiate litigation against Paramount’s board of directors, NAI, and/or Skydance for breach of fiduciary duty (or aiding and abetting) under Delaware law and/or whether the transaction violates federal law.” Regarding Paramount’s S-4 filing on Nov. 4, the Gabelli Value letter argued that, “The Proxy statement does not provide adequate disclosures concerning either the process leading up to board approval of the Merger or the fairness of the Merger consideration, nor does it provide any disclosure which would enable stockholders to ascertain whether consideration that should be paid to them is being diverted to NAI for its controlling stake in the Company.” In addition, the deal “is not subject to a vote by minority stockholders and minority shareholders are only being offered non-voting shares in post-Merger Paramount. In an interview with Variety in July following the Paramount-Skydance-NAI deal announcement, Gabelli praised the Skydance and Paramount teams for “a fantastic job” in detailing how the combined company could achieve synergies in content production and global distribution and through potential streaming joint ventures.
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