Word: paramountly
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Watch a giant takeover brawl unfold before your eyes! Marvel at the clash of colossal egos! Gasp at the gyrating stock prices! Not since the 1980s has Wall Street so unabashedly savored a fight as it did the one that broke out last week for filmmaker Paramount Communications. With a bid from Viacom Inc. valued at $7.5 billion already on the table, QVC shopping-network chairman Barry Diller unveiled a staggering $9.5 billion counteroffer. Paramount stockholders could almost be heard sighing at the thought of their potential profits. In a counterassault with personal overtones, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone fired back...
...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...
...CAPTION: PARAMOUNT...
...while such synergistic ideas sound good at the outset, they could prove difficult to engineer. For instance, Viacom plans to award rights to a film based on MTV characters Beavis and Butt-head to Paramount instead of Warner Bros., as originally planned. But impresario David Geffen spent a good part of last week fighting Viacom's Sumner Redstone to keep the film at Warner...
While there is little overlap in the Paramount and Viacom lines of business, there is plenty of redundancy in the executive suite, which could trigger a management shuffle. Davis, who would move from chairman and chief executive of Paramount to CEO of the new company under Redstone, told TIME last week, "Let's face it, I've taken a step down in title, and I do expect others to follow...