- What about this could be different,
this deal, this potential deal,
that could push it over the line?
- Yeah, thank you so much, Katie.
So this is of course deja vu all over again,
and we've been seeing so many twists and turns
in this saga over the past six months.
As you know, you know, just three weeks ago,
the talks completely broke down.
It looks like this time around,
what's different is you have a dollar amount
that is slightly higher than when the talks broke down.
So it looks like Skydance Media
is going to pay about 1.75 billion.
There is a 45 day go shop period.
But I think the real,
what could be the deal maker or breaker
is that we no longer require a shareholder approval vote.
So what Shari Redstone had wanted in prior negotiations
was she wanted a majority of a minority approval
for the class A shareholders.
That was a non-starter for Skydance Media.
But it looks like that has been next.
And it also looks
like there is much stronger indemnification language
this time around in the terms
which basically protects Shari Redstone
from a lot of pending lawsuits that could come
if this deal goes through
because, remember, this does favor her
over all of the other shareholders.
- And, I mean, obviously you see the stock rising right now.
It seems like Wall Street
seems to think this is a good idea,
or at least this is a viable deal.
I wanna hear your opinion though,
do you think that Skydance
is the proper partner for Paramount?
- Yeah, I think what we've realized
over the past six months, Katie,
is that M&A is inevitable.
I mean, we know that linear media is in secular decline.
We know that some deal has to happen.
And, you know, as the sale process has kind of played out
very publicly over the past six months,
we've kind of seen actually a destruction of value.
We've seen the CEO being fired,
you know, we've seen so many deal related expenses,
we've seen kind of employee morale
being completely destroyed,
and so some deal needs to happen.
I think why Shari Redstone
might prefer Skydance to other suitors
is because Skydance pretty much will keep the company intact
versus selling off parts of the company.
And I think that is really important to her
and, you know, for her father's and her family's legacy.
So I think that's why she might prefer it
compared to other bidders
like a Sony or, you know, an Apollo,
Sony and Apollo combination.