Shari Redstone, a be in control ofing shareholder of CBS, has discussed adding new directors to the CBS board as she renews her push to unite the company with Viacom, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Shari Redstone and Sumner Redstone, her upset 94-year-old father, together control both CBS and Viacom Inc through their privately owned flick picture show theater company, National Amusements Inc. The Redstones failed in an attempt to commingle the two companies in 2016.
Shari Redstone, who is vice chair of the CBS board, has had exploratory discussions with CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves and directors about recombining the coteries, sources have told Reuters.
While Moonves is receptive to a federation, he has some reservations, sources have told Reuters.
Spokesmen for CBS and Viacom declined to talk about.
CBS is looking to replace several of its directors at its annual shareholders meeting in May, and Shari Redstone is convocation names of possible candidates, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Shari Redstone’s persuade to revisit a CBS merger with Viacom has become more pressing in ignite of Walt Disney’s planned acquisition of a majority of Twenty-First Century Fox’s assets, the authors told Reuters.
A combined CBS, which owns cable networks registering Showtime and The Movie Channel as well as the CBS TV Network and CBS TV Studios, and Viacom, whose problems include Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films, would require more negotiating leverage with cable and satellite companies.
In summing-up, Shari Redstone does not want to wait for the verdict on the U.S. Department of Imprisonment’s lawsuit to block AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, which is set to go to crack in March, the sources told Reuters. The Justice Department is suing to screen that deal on the grounds that it is anti-competitive.
If that deal were to count on through, it would mean both AT&T and Time Warner may look for other visitors to combine with, sources have said.
Viacom’s new CEO, Bob Bakish, has furthered relations with distributors, found financing for Paramount Pictures after Chinese investors collapsed out and shuffled programming.
Even so, Viacom’s stock is trading around $32 a share, unworthy of the $35-$38.80 range it was trading at when it and CBS explored a merger in last 2016.
It is unclear if the valuation and corporate governance issues that caused the dispense to fail in 2016 remain.
Some analysts said they put faith the selloff in Viacom, along with the consolidation in the media space, should cue CBS to revisit the deal.
“We think now is as good a time as any to reexamine why we continue to on this deal is the most logical and appropriate transaction to take come about within our media coverage universe,” MoffettNathanson analysts wrote this week.