David Ellison‘s Skydance Media has introduced an $8 billion deal to take over Paramount International, capping a seven-month quest.

The corporate had won approval previous Sunday from a different committee of Paramount’s board of administrators. The total board then OK’d the plan for a two-step transaction, first the purchase of Nationwide Amusements Inc., the entity run through Shari Redstone that had managed virtually 80% of Paramount vote casting stocks. That transaction will likely be adopted through a complete merger.

Paramount Magnificence A stockholders gets $23 consistent with percentage in money/inventory election. Magnificence B stockholders gets $15 consistent with percentage in money/inventory election. The money attention to be had to public shareholders totals $4.5 billion.

Ellison will likely be Chairman and CEO, and previous NBCUniversal leader Jeff Shell will lead the corporate as president.

In a press liberate, Skydance mentioned it’s going to “reposition Paramount to reinforce profitability, foster steadiness and independence for creators, and allow extra funding in quicker rising virtual platforms.”

The all-stock transaction values Skydance at $4.75 billion. Skydance fairness holders will obtain 317 million Magnificence B Stocks valued at $15 consistent with percentage.

Skydance Investor Crew, produced from the Ellison circle of relatives and RedBird Capital Companions, will make investments $2.4 billion to obtain Nationwide Amusements for money. It’s going to then $4.5 billion for the inventory/money merger attention to be paid for publicly traded Magnificence A stocks and Magnificence B stocks, in addition to $1.5 billion of number one capital to be added to Paramount’s stability sheet.

After the shut of the deal, Skydance Investor Crew will personal 100% of “New Paramount” Magnificence A stocks and 69% of exceptional Magnificence B stocks, or about 70% of the professional forma stocks remarkable.

The consistent with percentage money election quantity to be presented to Paramount’s stockholders represents a 48% top rate to the cost of the Magnificence B inventory as of July 1, and a 28% top rate to the Magnificence A inventory at the identical date.

“In 1987, my father, Sumner Redstone, received Viacom and started assembling and rising the companies nowadays referred to as Paramount International,” Redstone mentioned. “He had a imaginative and prescient that ‘content material was once king’ and was once all the time dedicated to turning in nice content material for all audiences world wide. That imaginative and prescient has remained on the core of Paramount’s luck and our accomplishments are an instantaneous results of the extremely proficient, ingenious, and devoted people who paintings on the corporate. Given the adjustments within the trade, we wish to strengthen Paramount for the longer term whilst making sure that content material stays king. Our hope is that the Skydance transaction will allow Paramount’s persisted luck on this all of a sudden converting setting. As an established manufacturing spouse to Paramount, Skydance is aware of Paramount smartly and has a transparent strategic imaginative and prescient and the assets to take it to its subsequent level of expansion. We consider in Paramount and we all the time will.”

Skydance has a 15-year historical past as a co-finance companions with Paramount on a lot of its core franchises, together with Venture: Inconceivable, Transformers and Most sensible Gun. The corporations pointed to that background within the legitimate announcement and in addition famous that Skydance’s “remarkable pool of in-house ingenious animation ability, led through pioneer John Lasseter,” will place the corporate as a participant in animation.

CBS and Paramount Footage will likely be strengthened through the transaction, the announcement emphasised.

“It is a defining and transformative time for our trade and the storytellers, content material creators and monetary stakeholders who’re invested within the Paramount legacy and the longevity of the leisure economic system,” Ellison mentioned. “I’m extremely thankful to Shari Redstone and her circle of relatives who’ve agreed to entrust us with the chance to steer Paramount. We’re dedicated to energizing the trade and bolstering Paramount with recent era, new management and an artistic self-discipline that objectives to complement generations to come back.”

Gerry Cardinale, founder and managing spouse of RedBird Capital, described the deal as a “recapitalization of Paramount and mixture with Skydance.” The transaction will likely be “crucial second within the leisure trade at a time when incumbent media corporations are more and more challenged through technological disintermediation,” he persisted. “As one of the crucial iconic media manufacturers and libraries in Hollywood, Paramount has the highbrow assets basis to make sure longevity via this evolution – however it’s going to require a brand new technology of visionary management at the side of skilled operational control to navigate this subsequent segment. RedBird is making a considerable monetary funding in partnership with the Ellison circle of relatives as a result of we consider that the professional forma corporate beneath this management crew would be the tempo automotive for a way those incumbent legacy media companies will want to be run at some point.”