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Shari’s Schmuck Insurance

The Ellison/RedBird deal to buy Paramount includes a 45-day “go-shop” period, during which the special committee is empowered to consider other bidders: Sony and Apollo, Bronfman and Bain, Barry Diller, or Steven Paul. But there are a dozen reasons to believe that none of these rumored suitors will upset the apple cart.

Edgar Bronfman Jr.
“Schmuck insurance” means that Paramount can chat with the likes of Sony/Apollo, if they are still kicking the tires, or Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Bain Capital, if they are in fact serious. Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
July 14, 2024

Unless you are of a mind to try to decipher what the lawyers at Latham & Watkins and Simpson Thacher and Ropes & Gray mean by the term “upstream blocker holders,” I would advise staying far away from Paramount Global’s new 8K filing, which purports to share information about how the combination between Skydance Media, Paramount, and the Redstone family holding company will go down. Good luck trying to sort through 273 pages of legalistic gobbledygook, which I did so that you, Dear Reader, could be spared the agony.