Billionaire investor Mario Gabelli may not sell his stock in Paramount (NASDAQ:PARA) even if it merges with popular Hollywood movie studio Skydance, the New York Post reported in an interview with him on Friday.
“I may not sell stock if there is a deal with Skydance. I need to see the structure of the transaction,” Gabelli, who is a key voting shareholder in Paramount’s holding company, told the Post, and added that he currently has no opinion on the merger.
He said that the new Skydance deal appears to be a better one for minority shareholders, including him.
Under new terms, National Amusements, the holding company that owns 77% of the voting shares of Paramount, is not mandating that the merger be approved by a majority of non-Redstone shareholders.
The report also stated that Gabelli said the numbers for the Skydance deal “appeared favorable.”
“If Skydance is paying $1.75 billion for NAI and NAI has $500 million of debt, that’s $1.25 billion left for NAI shareholders,” Gabelli told the New York Post in the interview. “That’s $20 per share.”
Paramount heiress Shari Redstone earlier this week accepted an offer from Skydance for $1.75 billion to sell the controlling stake in National Amusements. Redstone had initially turned down the offer from Skydance.
“Shari did this right,” Gabelli told the Post. “She backed off and got something more appealing.”
Gabelli, while having his own doubts on whether the Skydance deal clears with the FCC, told the Post that he is curious to see if Redstone would be seen meeting with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) CEO David Zaslav at the annual billionaire summer camp at Sun Valley. Zaslav has shown interest in a Paramount deal from time to time.
Gabelli will not be attending the billionaire summer camp happening next week, the report said.