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- Apollo and Sony made a $26 billion all-cash offer to buy Paramount, WSJ reportd.
- The Apollo bid is led by the 37-year-old partner behind a $760 million deal for Legendary Entertainment.
- Rival bidder, film studio Skydance, has been trying to win over Paramount for months.
Sony and Apollo Global Management are reportedly bidding big for Paramount.
Sony and the private equity firm teamed up for an all-cash offer of $26 billion for Paramount Global, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The bid was officially sent on Wednesday, the Journal reported, based on anonymous sources. Sony and Apollo's offer was nonbinding, according to the Journal
Apollo's bid comes after Paramount announced its CEO Bob Bakish was stepping down Monday. The media giant has been negotiating with Skydance Media and its largest private equity backer RedBird Capital Partners, who have been trying to win over Paramount for the better part of a year. They've been in exclusive talks for the last month and the exclusivity period ends tomorrow.
Business Insider's Hayley Cuccinello recently reported that the Skydance consortium, including fellow Skydance investor KKR, submitted a revised offer on Sunday. Paramount would merge with Skydance and stay public, while Apollo's offer would likely take the entertainment giant private. Skydance's newest bid includes a $3 billion cash injection, most of which would go toward paying off shareholders, two sources close to the negotiation told Business Insider.
There are questions as to whether Paramount would stay whole under Apollo and Sony. Apollo previously bid $11 billion for just Paramount's movie studio, the Wall Street Journal reported in March. Paramount would have been left with its lower-performing cable channels and struggling streaming service, and the bid went nowhere.
Apollo partner Aaron Sobel co-signed the offer letter with Sony CEO Tony Vinciquerra, people familiar with the situation told the Journal. Sobel, 37, rose quickly at the firm and has executed media deals at Apollo with partner Lee Solomon. They co-led the $760 million purchase of a minority stake in Legendary Entertainment, the studio behind "Dune," in 2022. Last October, they helped Concord Music Group, a royalties giant, raise $500 million in bond sales to buy the copyright holder of Beatles songs.
Majority shareholder Shari Redstone hasn't commented on the rumors of a sale.