Should Shari Redstone Flip CBS News?

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

The longer this attenuated sales process drags on, the more likely it is that Shari Redstone just packs it in, pulls the company off the market, and waits for macroeconomic conditions in the industry to improve. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

William D. Cohan

March 16, 2022

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.