Shari Redstone to make $530 million from Paramount-Skydance merger

Shari Redstone, president of Paramount Global PARA and its parent company, National Amusements, stand to earn about $530 million when the media giant’s merger deal with Skydance Media expires in 2025.

Redstone will receive $70 million in a severance package alone, which will be paid by Skydance and its buyer partners, people familiar with the matter said. Bloomberg.

Skydance and Paramount originally reached an agreement in July for an $8 billion merger in which Skydance, led by David Ellison, would acquire National Amusements and merge with Paramount, which itself owns media brands including MTV and CBS . But the deal had a “go-shop” period that allowed Paramount to consider other offers.

Edgar Bronfmana business tycoon and media executive in the family behind the Seagram Co. liquor empire.put together a last-minute bid for $4.3 billion and then upped the offer to $6 billion in August

Paramount extended its “go-shop” period to consider the offer, but Bronfman decided to abandon the business.

Now, the Skydance-Paramount deal is scheduled to be completed sometime in the first half of 2025. David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, founded Skydance in 2006 to finance and produce media projects. Skydance’s first production, the box-office flop “Flyboys,” starred the young Ellison. Skydance continued to co-finance and co-produce projects with Paramount for more than a decade.

As part of the deal, Bloomberg says Skydance, the Ellisons and RedBird Capital Partners are paying $2.4 billion, including debt owed to National Amusements. Redstone, which owns a 20 percent stake in National Amusements, will earn about $350 million from the sale, in addition to a $70 million severance package and a $110 million pension liability.

National Amusement did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Quartz.

Skydance also plans to invest $6 billion to buy shares in Paramount and pay off some of its debt. Paramount would then merge with Skydance, with Ellison leading the new company.

– Ben Kesslen contributed to this report.