Word: paramount
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...late 1980s, he saw how excessive debt almost sank that entertainment company. In the end, Diller essentially threw in his hand and let Redstone rake in the pot. For Redstone, the triumph in what he angrily came to call "the cruel, abusive and sometimes ridiculous battle for Paramount" could hardly have been sweeter. With the battle about to end last Monday, Redstone, Biondi and two Viacom colleagues repaired to the posh "21" Club in midtown Manhattan to dine and await the result of the tally of tendered shares, which was due by midnight. The first call from Viacom's proxy...
...word concession statement rang down the curtain last week on one of the hardest-fought and longest-running takeover sagas in American corporate history. It came after Viacom Inc., best known for its ownership of MTV, won an overwhelming victory in the epic five-month battle for control of Paramount Communications, garnering more than 90% of Paramount shares soon after the polls closed in the proxy contest. In doing so, Viacom takes home some of the crown jewels of entertainment, including the Paramount film and television studios and a library of 890 movies ranging from Wayne's World...
Time was running out on the Viacom executives and advisers who hunkered down to a Sunday-afternoon skull session in the well-appointed 49th-floor midtown- Manhattan offices of Robert Greenhill, the chairman of investment firm Smith Barney Shearson. Four days earlier, on Jan. 12, Paramount directors had spurned a sweetened Viacom bid and backed a $10 billion merger with Barry Diller's QVC home-shopping network. Unless Viacom came back fast and hard, everyone present knew, the fight would soon be over...
...left Viacom with $10 billion of debt and exacted a heavy toll on the company's shareholders and allies. Redstone concedes that the battle forced him to cough up some $1.5 billion more than he intended to pay when Viacom and Paramount unveiled their original merger agreement last Sept. 12. Since then the price of Viacom Class-B stock has shrunk more than 50%, falling from 56 3/4 to 25 3/4 last Friday as investors reckoned that the cost ! of the merger would hammer the company's profits for years...
...deal also spells the almost certain end of the Paramount career of Martin Davis, who has run the corporation since 1983 but was relegated to the role of bystander in the protracted struggle. There will be no room for Davis in the merged company, which will be headed by Redstone, Biondi and Blockbuster chairman H. Wayne Huizenga, who is to become Viacom's vice chairman. Davis will leave with a fat consolation prize, however, when he cashes in his Paramount stock for roughly $120 million...