Paramount Global appears to be at the end of selling major assets - BET+ is off the market
Paramount Decides Against Selling BET Majority Stake
This is interesting, and perhaps a signal of some evolving thinking between Sheri Redstone and Baklish.
Some additional context is being reported by the WSJ (via a report in Variety).
According to The Wall Street Journal, the company announced Wednesday that it would end the bidding process for the unit — which includes VH1 and BET Studios, streamer BET+ and the BET channel —because “a sale wouldn’t result in any meaningful deleveraging of its balance sheet,” people familiar with the matter told WSJ. Paramount Global had received bids ranging from approximately $2 billion to $3 billion.
This really spotlights that the driver for the sale of major non-core business-related assets has been lowering the leverage ratios of the remerged firm. Sheri Redstone has had to pay a steep price to reverse her late father Sumner’s decision to break up Paramount and CBS.
It also raises questions around the barriers for Tyler Perry, Byron Allen and Diddy Combs efforts to consolidate Black-focused media production and distribution.
If WSJ is correct about the lack of debt reduction potential for Paramount Global in a $2-3 billion sale of its equity stake in BET+, it sounds like the sale transaction would not have had a sufficient proportion of cash necessary to retire enough debt to balance the reduction in equity. So, how did the prospective buyers think they were going to finance the deal?
What does this mean for Star Trek? Again, it counters the wild fire-sale rumours of earlier this spring that Paramount Global might sell off the rights to a major IP to save the rest. Unless a deal brings more cash to reduce debt without reducing the equity value, it will be a nonstarter. It also means that Paramount will remain significantly invested in equity-focused programming.