Everyone seems to be studying the tea leaves today on the seemingly endlessly stalled $8 billion Skydance-Paramount deal.
The Wall Avenue fortune tellers preserve on the lookout for clues as as to if Paramount heiress Shari Redstone pays President Trump what he needs to settle a $20 billion lawsuit towards its CBS subsidiary?
And if she does, will that be sufficient to get the deal accepted by his broadcast regulators.
On The Cash exists no less than partially to chop via the malarkey – and let you know that the most recent tea leaves being intently examined are (as a sure nice playwright as soon as mentioned) filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.
A kind of tea leaves led to the suggestion that Paramount laid off individuals earlier this week, a reasonably steep 3% of its present workforce, as a result of it’s planning that the deal is not going to undergo.
Layoffs of such a magnitude often happen not when two events are about to merge, however lengthy earlier than, or when there isn’t a deal within the works. The considering is that present administration is resizing the enterprise as a result of they plan on working Paramount for the foreseeable future.
As On The Cash was first to report, Paramount’s high brass – except for Redstone (she’s recused herself due to the potential payday) – is cautious of the optics of paying off Trump so Shari can stroll away with what’s left of the nest egg left to her by her father, the late merger impresario Sumner Redstone.
They concern it might open the corporate to bribery expenses by settling the frivolous lawsuit – alleging “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris within the warmth of the marketing campaign (Trump gained the election so there’s no damages) – that their administrators and officers insurance coverage doesn’t cowl if some prosecutor introduced a case.
All true, however the layoffs had little to do with the way forward for the deal, by hook or by crook, individuals shut the transaction instructed On The Cash.
SkyDance had deliberate to personal Paramount by now, and was planning the very same cuts to make the numbers work earlier than it may make investments and develop the enterprise, sources mentioned.
With the deal in limbo, Paramount simply did it first so cross that tea leaf off your listing.
The second tea leaf is a bit more attention-grabbing, although I’m instructed, simply as inconsequential to the deal’s consequence.
It includes the looks of Skydance boss David Ellison ringside at a UFC 314 battle in Miami a number of weeks in the past with Trump, who was shaking fingers and schmoozing with the likes of Joe Rogan and Shaquille O’Neal.
The tea-leaf-reading discuss right here speculated that the deal is again on – Trump can’t wait to approve it as a favor to David’s dad, and Trump bestie, Larry Ellison. Why would Trump be seen with Larry’s child if he have been about to screw him?
Besides, guess who else was ringside as Trump made his manner via the gang? Elon Musk, sure that Elon who had simply known as Trump some actually nasty names. So nasty that earlier this week, Elon issued a semi-apology. He was sitting together with his son, not removed from the youthful Ellison and Trump.
So cross that one off as properly, deal watchers inform me.
For now, these on the lookout for clues on how this stalemate ends should flip over a brand new tea leaf.
