Media Gossip, Biden's War Room, & Some M&A Game Theory

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to what's new at Puck.

Today, we lead with William Cohan's provocative reporting on a curious thought experiment circulating on Wall Street and among elite dealmakers: If Shari Redstone can't sell Paramount Global with CBS News in the mix, could a certain private equity company take those media assets off her hands?

Plus, below the fold, Julia Ioffe reveals how Joe Biden's White House is assessing Vladimir Putin's military objectives, his sanity, and his fast-evolving geopolitical endgame.

Should Shari Redstone Flip CBS News?

Redstone likely can’t sell Paramount Global—oh, that name—until she finds a way to offload its signature news assets. For private equity dealmakers, here’s where things could get interesting.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

Around Wall Street these days, there is consensus that Shari Redstone has been keen to sell or to merge what she is now calling Paramount Global, and what many think of as the ill-fated re-combination of CBS and Viacom. As many of my most loyal readers know, I’ve been predicting this for years. Frankly, it always seemed to me that Redstone’s logic for recombining these companies was that a single entity—one company, one board, one shareholder base, etc.—would eventually make it easier for her to flip and, presumably, be easier for her family from a tax perspective. 

Now, the rapidly transforming streaming entertainment sector is putting some time pressure on the putative plan. Paramount Global, after all, is a minnow among sharks. With a market value of around $23 billion, it is the smallest of the group of companies that aspire to Hollywood hegemony. Netflix, even after its recent plunge, still has a market value of about $157 billion. Comcast is valued at around $206 billion. Disney has a market value of more than $250 billion. Amazon and Apple, the newest players in the content game, are worth trillions.

The stock market, too, seems to be gearing up for a Paramount Global sale. While the market as a whole has had a rough start in 2022—the S&P 500 is down 10 percent and the Nasdaq is down more than 16 percent, while Netflix is down 41 percent and Disney is down 12 percent—Paramount Global is up nearly 12 percent. There’s no special news out of Paramount Global to justify the stock’s increase this year, other than the ongoing deal speculation among investors. Meanwhile, it seems Paramount Global is busy settling outstanding litigation...

FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT

Chapek's Week from Hell

Disney’s new C.E.O. badly miscalculated in his attempt to pivot the company's politics, compounding one of its worst crises in years.

MATTHEW BELLONI

Biden's Ukraine War Room

Joe Biden’s former Ukraine advisor reveals how the White House assesses Putin’s military objectives, his sanity, and his endgame.

JULIA IOFFE

Yuri Milner's Red Line

Plus, insider updates on S.F.'s venture-backed Chesa Boudin recall and a breakthrough in Biden’s megadonor embargo.

THEODORE SCHLEIFER

The Atlantic vs. Ruth Shalit

A lawsuit involving a disgraced journalist and one of the country's most august publications turns, naturally, on the issue of narrative.

ERIQ GARDNER