Word: paramount
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...sultry first Friday of summer, and office workers in Manhattan were streaming out of the city to start their weekend. Not so at the headquarters of Paramount Communications, formerly Gulf & Western, where the company's 14-member board of directors was making a high-stakes decision. Just 30 minutes after trading closed on the New York Stock Exchange, Paramount announced that it was increasing its hostile bid for Time Inc. from $175 a share to $200, thus raising its total offer from $10.7 billion to more than $12 billion...
Critics of the deal complained that it would not quickly raise Time's stock to the level of Paramount's bid. "Time management had a plan to build an empire, and somebody threw a wrench into that plan by offering the shareholders a better price," said Ralph Whitworth, director of the United Shareholders Association, a Washington-based advocacy group. "It should have been left up to the shareholders to decide" how to vote on Paramount's proposal. Disappointed Time stockholders may be inclined to bring lawsuits accusing the company of failing to look after their immediate interests. Said...
...rejecting Paramount's bid and going its own way, Time contends that the $175-a-share offer was never really credible. Nicholas noted that it was contingent on "substantial conditions" that included Paramount's ability to obtain financing and the approval of regulatory agencies...
...Paramount's biggest potential obstacles is the task of persuading the Federal Communications Commission and some 750 local governments around the country to transfer to Paramount the licenses and franchise rights for cable- TV units operated by Time's 82%-owned American Television and Communications. Getting approval for such transfers "would be difficult even without a hostile bid," says Ross, "but now we'll be challenging them every inch of the way." As the three-way takeover battle wears on, it is likely to be fought in just that contentious manner -- in the courts, the stock market and the corporate...
...company rejects Paramount's hostile takeover bid and refashions its agreement to acquire Warner in a deal that could ultimately cost $14 billion and create a heavy load of debt...