Shari Redstone, chair of Paramount Global, will get $180 million in severance and other benefits on top of hundreds of millions from the sale of her stock to a group led by filmmaker David Ellison, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The Ellison family and its partner, RedBird Capital Partners, are paying about $1.75 billion to acquire the equity of National Amusements Inc., the Redstone family company that owns most of the voting stock in Paramount, the parent of CBS and MTV.
Redstone holds a 20% stake in National Amusements through two trusts in her name and is in line to receive about $350 million from its sale. The Ellison group will also pay off obligations that include a $70 million severance package for Redstone and an unfunded pension liability of $110 million as part of the National Amusements acquisition, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing nonpublic information.
Ellison is leading a group of investors poised to acquire majority control of Paramount, a major film and TV company, for more than $8 billion.
The group is paying $2.4 billion for National Amusements, including the liabilities, according to publicly reported details of the agreement. It’s also planning to invest $6 billion to buy Paramount shares and reduce the company’s debt, and will merge the business with Ellison’s company, Skydance Media.
National Amusements includes the Redstone family’s original source of wealth, a chain of movie theaters. It’s also the vehicle through which they own a majority of Paramount’s voting stock.