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☆ A Looming Question for Paramount’s Board: How to Navigate Shari Redstone
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-04 | by ( Benjamin Mullin | Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Shari Redstone won control over her media empire in 2018 after a hard-fought struggle with CBS. Now, Ms. Redstone has decided to sell her controlling stake in Paramount, a decision that could put her in conflict with some of the company’s shareholders. The question that Paramount’s board has to answer — and may eventually have to defend in a courtroom: Is the deal under consideration good for all shareholders, or just Ms. Redstone? “Are these decisions that are being made in the best interest of Paramount generally?” said Eric Talley, a law professor at Columbia. “Or are they basically the types of decisions that are only going to give Shari Redstone a nice nut but pretty much stick it to the other minority shareholders?”

Persons: Shari Redstone, ”, Eric Talley, Shari Organizations: CBS, Viacom, Paramount, Columbia

As Paramount, the media company that’s the home of the “Top Gun” franchise and Nickelodeon, was preparing to enter exclusive talks to sell itself to the media company Skydance, another suitor emerged. Apollo Global Management, the investment firm, told Paramount over the weekend that it was interested in acquiring the entire company for more than $26 billion, including the value of Paramount’s debt, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. It had previously submitted an $11 billion offer to acquire just the Paramount movie studio. Paramount decided not to engage with Apollo’s overture, the people said, with one person explaining that doing so could have derailed its advancing negotiations with Skydance, which became exclusive this week. Apollo said in a letter to Paramount that it was interested in buying out all the company’s shareholders in cash, which could be enticing as the board seeks to strike a deal that not only pleases Shari Redstone, who controls Paramount, but also the company’s common shareholders.

Persons: Apollo’s, Apollo, Shari Redstone Organizations: Paramount, Nickelodeon, Apollo Global Management, CBS, Skydance

Tesla’s woes prompt an E.V. reassessmentWall Street has sounded the alarm for weeks that the transition to electric vehicles may be stalling, despite billions in government subsidies and huge investments by auto giants. Tesla’s latest sales figures suggest that the pullback may be worse than thought — and beyond one company’s ability to fix. Tesla’s numbers undershot forecasts. That has contributed to a more than 30 percent decline in Tesla’s stock, which has made it one of the worst performers on the S&P 500 this year.

Microsoft unbundles, againMicrosoft is separating Teams, its popular video and chat app, from its Office software suite in markets around the world, broadening a split that began in the European Union last fall. It appears to be the latest effort by the software giant to head off investigations by global antitrust enforcers as regulators examine the power of Big Tech. Microsoft first added the video and document collaboration program to its business software suite in 2017, and saw Teams’s popularity soar after the coronavirus pandemic unleashed a boom in hybrid and remote working. At the height of the lockdown in 2020, Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior by bundling Teams with Office. (Three months later, Slack agreed to sell itself to Salesforce for $27.7 billion.)

Persons: Microsoft unbundles, Slack, Eric Yuan Organizations: Microsoft, European Union, Big Tech, Rivals, Commission

Paramount, home to one of Hollywood’s most storied movie studios as well as CBS and cable networks like Nickelodeon, has been discussing entering into exclusive talks with the media company Skydance for a potential deal, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions. Apollo Global Management, an investment firm with more than $500 billion under management, has submitted an $11 billion offer to acquire the Paramount movie studio. Byron Allen, whose Entertainment Studios owns the Weather Channel, has also expressed interest in acquiring Paramount. Ms. Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, began negotiating with Skydance to sell her stake in the company last year. She controls Paramount through National Amusements, a holding company that owns her voting stock in Paramount.

Persons: Shari Redstone, Byron Allen Organizations: Paramount, CBS, Nickelodeon, Apollo Global Management, Entertainment Studios, Weather, Skydance, National

Politicians and auto executives on both sides of the Atlantic are calling for more protectionist measures. After Tesla lost its crown to BYD as the world’s biggest E.V. Otherwise, the Tesla C.E.O. said, Chinese E.V. The continent’s auto sector employs 13 million people and generates 8 percent of the bloc’s G.D.P.

Persons: China Tesla, —, Warren Buffett, Tesla, Elon Musk, ” Luca de Meo, Vivienne Walt, DealBook, ”, June’s E.U Organizations: Renault Group’s, Airbus Locations: China, Europe, June’s

☆ Sports Leagues Bet on Gambling. Now They’re Facing Its Risks.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-30 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | Ephrat Livni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The incidents have highlighted a trade-off that professional sports leagues made when they embraced gambling. Leagues have signed lucrative marketing deals with betting apps like FanDuel and DraftKings and use gambling to amp up fan engagement. “The risk is that the game becomes like professional wrestling — which is rigged. And nobody bets on professional wrestling,” said Fay Vincent, the M.L.B. “And if baseball becomes professional entertainment the way wrestling is, it’s dead.”

Persons: ”, Fay Vincent Organizations: Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, Leagues

☆ For Disney, Small Shareholders Loom Large in Boardroom Fight
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-30 | by ( Brooks Barnes | Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Gavin Doyle used allowance money in 2009, when he was 11, to buy a few shares of Disney stock. He now owns a little over 400 shares — barely enough to be a speck of dust in the Disney investor galaxy. “I guess every vote matters,” said Mr. Doyle, 26, who runs MickeyVisit, a blog unaffiliated with Disney that focuses on theme park vacation planning. Powerful institutional investors like mutual funds and index funds typically run the show. But Disney finds itself in an atypical situation as it scrambles to thwart Nelson Peltz, an activist investor who is seeking two board seats, including one for himself.

Persons: Gavin Doyle, ”, Doyle, Nelson Peltz Organizations: Disney

Kushner and Kloss take over Life magazineLife, the iconic photography-focused chronicler of the 20th century, has taken on many forms, including a weekly magazine, a website and the occasional special issue. Kushner and Kloss are buying the publication rights to Life from Dotdash Meredith, the print and digital publisher. The deal is being done through Bedford Media, the media start-up that Kloss leads as C.E.O. Life was once a central part of American culture, featuring the work of renowned photographers like Robert Capa and writing by top authors. (Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” first appeared in its pages.

Persons: Kushner, Kloss, Barry, Josh Kushner, Dotdash Meredith, Robert Capa, Ernest Hemingway’s “ Organizations: IAC, Bedford Media Locations: OpenAI

A settlement that could scramble the credit card businessA long-running fight between the credit card giants Visa and Mastercard and retailers in the United States is nearing an end, with the promise of lower fees for merchants. But the proposed class-action settlement could have wider consequences, including for the lucrative business of high-end credit cards — and for retailers. What’s in the settlement: Visa and Mastercard said on Tuesday that they had agreed to reduce swipe fees, costs associated with the use of a credit card, for about five years. Perhaps more important, merchants will be able to raise their prices based on the kind of card. For example, buying groceries with a higher-fee card — typically a premium card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve — could become more expensive than paying with a lower-end one.

Organizations: Visa, Mastercard, Chase Locations: United States

BlackRock’s chief wants to rethink a fiscal time bombAs the chairman and C.E.O. In his latest letter to investors, published on Tuesday, Fink weighs in on a new topic: a looming global retirement crisis, and what can be done to address it. The way retirement is handled around the world needs to change, Fink writes. In the U.S. in particular, people are living longer, a trend that’s likely to grow given the advent of weight loss drugs like Wegovy, Fink writes. But he adds that four in 10 Americans don’t have $400 in emergency savings, let alone proper retirement funds.

Persons: Larry Fink, Fink Organizations: BlackRock

☆ The U.S. Investors Caught in the Scrum Over TikTok
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For years, the U.S. investors who backed ByteDance, the Chinese internet company that owns TikTok, have wrestled with the complexities of owning a piece of a geopolitically fraught social media app. A bill to force ByteDance to sell TikTok is winding its way through the Senate after sailing through the House this month. In December, a Missouri pension board voted to divest from some Chinese investments, following political pressure from the state treasurer. The Beijing-based company has grown into one of the world’s most highly valued start-ups, worth $225 billion, according to CB Insights. That’s a boon, at least on paper, for U.S. investors who put money into ByteDance when it was a smaller company.

Persons: it’s, ByteDance, Biden Organizations: Senate, General Atlantic, Susquehanna International Group, Sequoia Capital, Administration, U.S Locations: U.S, China, Missouri, Florida, Beijing, ByteDance

Raised stakes in a firearms takeover contestA battle over Vista Outdoor, the company behind top ammunition brands like Remington and Camelbak water bottles, is escalating — and national security is becoming a bigger factor in the fight. MNC is offering $37.50 a share for all of Vista, up from a bid of $35 last month and 16 percent higher than where Vista’s stock closed on Friday. In a letter to Vista’s board reviewed by DealBook, the investment firm reiterated that it had lined up financing for its offer, despite questions by Vista about how solid those commitments were. Vista rejected MNC’s previous offer, saying a planned breakup of itself would be more valuable for shareholders. (Vista has agreed to sell its ammunition business to CSG for $1.9 billion, leaving its nonfirearm division, Revelyst, as a stand-alone public company.)

Persons: DealBook, Vista Organizations: Vista, Remington, MNC Capital, Czechoslovak, MNC, CSG Locations: U.S, Vista

Are investors buying Nvidia’s latest A.I. Nvidia’s stock has soared more than fivefold since ChatGPT debuted in November 2022, a rally that has vaulted the chipmaker into the trillion-dollar market cap club on the back of investor fervor for artificial intelligence — and the high-end processors that power these models. But shares in Nvidia are down in premarket trading on Tuesday after investors gave the first day of the company’s annual developer conference (known as “A.I. Woodstock”) a tough grade. That’s even after the semiconductor company introduced its latest chip, which is capable of running increasingly complex computing models.

Persons: ChatGPT, A.I Organizations: Nvidia Locations: Woodstock

A different kind of battle for Third PointA small computer chip design company, R2 Semiconductor, has been notching wins in a potentially big patent fight against Intel over the past few months — a dispute that could force Intel to stop selling several chip lines in Europe. The context: R2 sued Intel, as well as two customers, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell, in Germany, alleging that the chipmaker had infringed on a patent dealing with voltage regulation in semiconductors. A regional court in February issued injunctions against the sale of at least some Intel chips. And on March 8, a higher court rejected Intel’s effort to halt the decision. Meanwhile, a trial in Britain over the patent is set to begin next month.

Persons: DealBook, Dan, haven’t Organizations: R2 Semiconductor, Intel, Amazon Web Services, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Locations: Europe, Germany, Britain

☆ What Must Nelson Peltz Do to Get Some Respect?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-16 | by ( James B. Stewart | Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

At age 81, with over four decades of dealmaking and corporate cage-rattling under his belt, Nelson Peltz would seem to have pretty much everything. Until the hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin came to Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Peltz had the largest property tax bill in town, with an oceanfront estate estimated to be worth $334 million. He also has an undeniably full life apart from his business: He has two children from his first marriage. He also has eight children (including two sets of twins) with his wife since 1981, the former model Claudia Heffner. His eldest child from that marriage, Matt, is a partner and co-chief investment officer at Mr. Peltz’s Trian Partners.

Persons: Nelson Peltz, Ken Griffin, Peltz, Claudia Heffner, Matt, Peltz’s Organizations: Peltz’s Trian Partners Locations: Palm Beach, Fla, Bedford , N.Y

☆ Americans Invested Billions in Chinese Companies. Now Their Money Is Stuck.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-16 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | Michael J. De La Merced | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When investors talk about “zombie” companies, they’re usually referring to distressed start-ups that are hobbling along, unable to grow and unlikely to ever return the money they’ve raised. But as deal makers feverishly debated efforts this week by lawmakers to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app, they talked about a new version: China zombies. China zombies may have booming businesses, but they’re unlikely to provide investors with any immediate return because they’re stuck in geopolitical cross hairs. It’s not just the investors in ByteDance who, after handing it more than $8 billion, are stuck. What looked like a mammoth growth opportunity just a few years ago — inspiring investors to pour money into companies like Ant Financial, PingPong and Geekplus — has turned hostile.

Persons: they’re, — Organizations: Ant Locations: China, ByteDance

What’s next for ByteDance’s U.S. investors? DealBook has spoken with people in the know about what these investors, including financial giants like the Susquehanna International Group, can do, with billions of dollars on the line. Mnuchin, a former Treasury secretary, told Andrew on CNBC on Thursday that he was in talks with a “combination of U.S. investors” about a TikTok deal. He added that he had spoken with some of the investors in ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent, about possibly rolling over their stake. of the video game giant Activision Blizzard, also reportedly has been looking for potential partners for a bid.

Persons: What’s, ”, DealBook, Steven Mnuchin, Andrew, Bill Ford, Bobby Kotick Organizations: ByteDance’s U.S, U.S, Susquehanna International Group, CNBC, Activision Locations: Beijing, China, ByteDance

Though its fate in the Senate is unclear, anti-China sentiment and pressure on lawmakers from the White House could force the issue. That belies the technical and legal hurdles in selling TikTok, as well as divisions within the U.S. tech community over the proposed legislation. The heads of the chamber’s Intelligence Committee — Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, and Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida — support the bill. So do the sometimes progressive John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, and the hawkish Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. It’s long overdue to push back and this bill does exactly that,” Fetterman posted on social media.

Persons: Mark Warner, Marco Rubio, John Fetterman, Ted Cruz, ” Fetterman Organizations: TikTok, Senate, chamber’s Intelligence, Democrat, Republican Locations: Washington, China, Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas

☆ Big Appeal, and Big Question Marks, in Possible TikTok Sale
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | David Mccabe | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

TikTok is one of the most popular and largest social media apps around the globe — with great brand recognition and loyal users. That’s the conundrum facing TikTok as Washington lawmakers push a bill that would force the app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell it or face having it banned in the United States. The bill passed the House on Wednesday but could face an uphill climb in the Senate. Rumors are already swirling on Wall Street about who could be interested in buying TikTok. The U.S. president, according to the bill passed by the House, would have to affirm that a deal cut the app off from ByteDance.

Persons: Steven Mnuchin, Mr, Mnuchin Organizations: CNBC, U.S Locations: Washington, United States, U.S, ByteDance

TikTok faces a crucial voteThe House is set to vote on Wednesday on a bill that would ostensibly present ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, with an ultimatum: sell TikTok’s U.S. operations, or have the app barred. But there’s a fight brewing over whether it’s actually possible for ByteDance to sell TikTok — or if the bill is effectively a ban disguised as a call for divestment. Does the bill allow for a sale? The proposal forbids any deal that allows TikTok’s U.S. and foreign operations to cooperate on a content recommendation algorithm or share data. While TikTok says it already walls off the data of U.S. users from its parent company, it’s not clear the company could operate without any foreign support.

Persons: it’s, ” TikTok, TikTok Organizations: TikTok’s U.S Locations: U.S, United States

Trump’s TikTok U-turnTikTok users have continued to flood the social media platform — and lawmakers’ inboxes — with pleas to halt a bill that would force its Chinese owners to divest or face a ban in the U.S.That effort to keep TikTok online has now attracted some unlikely backers, including Donald Trump. A recap: Last week, a powerful House committee voted 50-0 to remove TikTok from U.S. app stores by Sept. 30 unless its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, sold its stake. President Biden said on Friday that he’d sign the bill if it reaches his desk — even as his campaign has embraced the platform. But Trump has potentially scrambled the political calculus in Washington. Starting last week, the former president has pushed back against a TikTok ban, arguing that such a move would strengthen Meta’s Facebook — the “true Enemy of the People!” (Remember that as president, Trump issued an executive order ordering ByteDance to divest its American assets.)

Persons: ’ inboxes, Donald Trump, Biden, Trump Organizations: Facebook Locations: U.S, Beijing, Washington

Biden goes on the offensivePresident Biden sought to reinvigorate his re-election campaign, delivering an animated and mostly gaffe-free State of the Union address that put the economy and business front and center. In the prime-time slot, he pitched Bidenomics as delivering for Americans, and outlined a policy wish list that may appeal to progressive voters and some in his party but which could also put him at loggerheads with big corporations. Heading into a November rematch with Donald Trump, Biden sought to frame the presidential race in stark terms for the democracy while holding business to account. Among the areas that could rankle business leaders: a call to raise the minimum tax on multinationals to 21 percent. He also singled out “Big Oil, private jets, and massive executive pay” in his speech as areas ripe for boosting tax revenue.

Persons: Biden, Donald Trump, ” Organizations: Oil

Inflationary pressure and presidential politicsPresident Biden and Donald Trump dominated Super Tuesday, setting the stage for a rematch of the 2020 election. One topic that’s high on the agenda for voters: Inflation. Inflation is kryptonite for any politician, and especially for Biden. Trump again pounded the president on high prices, an issue that’s lifting the Republican in polls even as a range of indicators show that the economy is performing strongly. (The White House is putting the blame on corporations that “try to rip off Americans.” Watch for that theme at Thursday’s State of the Union address.)

Persons: Biden, Donald Trump, Jay Powell, Trump Organizations: Super, Biden, ” Locations: Thursday’s State

Two names are likely to draw attention: LeBron James, the superstar basketball player, and Drake, the rapper. James and Drake are committing additional capital as “strategic investors,” and are expected to use their marketing power to help the tour broaden its audience. James and the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, were at the home of Tom Werner, F.S.G.’s chairman, recently discussing just that, DealBook hears. Fans may see the stars around the greens, perhaps in the same way Drake is a frequent courtside presence at Toronto Raptors games. I remember some of my best childhood memories was being on the golf course with my uncle,” Drake said in a statement to DealBook.

Persons: LIV Golf, wasn’t, LeBron James, Drake, Steve Cohen, Arthur Blank, Marc Lasry, James, Jay Monahan, Tom Werner, F.S.G, ’, DealBook, ” Drake, “, ” Organizations: Fenway Sports Group, PGA, PGA Tour, Toronto Raptors Locations: Saudi

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