Word: diller
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...advent of such an '80s-style fight had Wall Streeters in a spasm of nostalgia for a decade in which it seemed that deals had to be mean if they were going to be big. Propelled by Diller's bid and constant rumors of new suitors, Paramount stock rose 7 3/8 a share, to close at 75 7/8 last week. Arbitragers, who purchase the stock of takeover targets in the hope that deals will be completed, welcomed the battle and became voracious buyers. Fee- hunting investment bankers scrambled to draw other bidders into the fray and grab some...
...collective id of the players was already breathtaking. Now comes Barry Diller -- hypersmart, overweeningly arrogant, terrifyingly blunt -- teamed up with John Malone, who is said to operate in a perpetual suffer-no-fools, scorched-earth mode...
...narrative gets richer. A decade ago, Diller brilliantly ran Paramount under Martin Davis, and the antipathy today is intense and mutual, although not, according to two entertainment power brokers close to Diller, an important impetus for the current takeover attempt -- just a "cherry on the sundae," says...
...comparison to this 3-D chess match. Tracking the corporate cross-purposes and potential conflicts of interest makes the brain hurt. Paramount's Davis, surely a lame duck no matter who wins, wants Sumner Redstone's Viacom to become his proprietor, but both will be millions richer even if Diller and Malone prevail. Because Malone controls a quarter of the stock in Turner Broadcasting, mellowing Ted Turner (he told someone recently he's "a lot less hungry" than certain other moguls) was persuaded last week not to offer his own competing bid for Paramount. If Turner had wound up buying...
...year ago, before Diller hooked up with Malone at QVC, the cultural elite considered shopping by TV a joke, unworthy of serious interest. But Diller's involvement in one stroke transformed home shopping's image from pathetic trailer-park quasi-entertainment to visionary locomotive into the future. Yet he must have realized the frenzied run-up of his stock wouldn't continue indefinitely, and he certainly knows, according to a friend, that without a real Hollywood movie studio he cannot be a full-fledged member of Hollywood royalty. Analysts can talk about corporate fit and maximizing shareholder assets all they...