Former Warner Music boss Edgar Bronfman Jr is working with private equity giant Bain Capital on a bid to buy Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) owner National Amusements Inc.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that Bronfman and Bain are mulling a possible offer of between $2 billion and $2.5 billion to buy move theatre operator National Amusements, which controls Paramount.
Advanced talks are already underway to sell Paramount and other parts of National Amusements to production company Skydance Media, the company run by David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
National Amusements is privately owned, with media executive Shari Redstone and her family holding a 77% of voting shares in Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) and subsidiaries that include CBS, Comedy Central, Showtime Networks, Nickelodeon, MTV and the film studio Paramount Pictures.
The Journal said it was unclear whether Redstone would consider other bids as the talks with Ellison continue, which were said to have been making progress in recent days to resolve possible issues.
These include how to handle possible lawsuits from other Paramount shareholders, some have whom object to the latest proposed structure of the Skydance deal, where Skydance will acquire National Amusements for about $2 billion, scooping up almost 50% of Paramount’s non-voting shares at $15 per share for $4.5 billion.
Last month it was also reported that Hollywood producer Steven Paul was also preparing a roughly $3 billion offer for National Amusements, and that Sony Pictures and private equity group Apollo also made an offer.