Word: diller
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...last-minute rabbit out of his hat. Unknown to most analysts and investors, a team of investment advisers and lawyers was secretly huddled at the Ritz Carlton hotel in New York City negotiating a blockbuster of a deal that would help Viacom beat the rival bid of Barry Diller's QVC Network...
...both the merger and the apparent meagerness of the new offer. After two weeks of furious negotiations and consultations with a team of investment bankers from Morgan Stanley, Redstone had produced a bid that was considered by many analysts to be not only anticlimactic but also inferior to Diller's current offer. Though the offer is a complex blend of stock and cash, the estimated value of the Viacom-Blockbuster package is around $79 for each share of Paramount stock, in contrast to QVC's $82 a share. The main difference between the two bids -- and what Redstone is counting...
...unclear why someone with Redstone's acumen had labored to produce such a tentative bid. Diller thought so little of Redstone's counter that he vowed QVC would simply stand pat, which was tantamount to a claim of victory. Nor was it clear why Huizenga, whose extraordinarily successful Blockbuster has been on a prodigious buying spree of its own for the past year, would cede control of his own company. Huizenga, a clever and willful entrepreneur who had built the company into not only the largest retailer of home videos and Hollywood's largest single customer but also the majority...
...Despite the questions swirling around the merger, the new offer is enough to prolong the contentious five-month battle for control of Paramount and cast renewed uncertainty over its outcome. With his latest parry -- even if it turns out to be as ineffectual as Diller thinks it is -- Redstone has for the moment denied QVC's chairman the prize he so eagerly desires. Diller, Redstone and Paramount CEO Martin Davis have been locked in combat since September, when Viacom agreed to buy the movie studio for $8.2 billion in a friendly deal. Soon after that agreement, Diller launched...
BUSINESS: Diller Closes In on Paramount...