The company and Apollo Global Management are discussing a joint effort, even as Paramount conducts exclusive merger negotiations with Skydance.
Wall Street titan Mario Gabelli is slamming a possible merger between Paramount and Skydance Media — and says he’d rather see Paramount exit deal talks altogether. The legendary investor — whose firm through super voting shares and common Paramount stock is the second leading voting shareholder next to media heiress Shari Redstone — added in an interview with the New York Post that he’s also against a sale of Paramount to Apollo Global Management, which has offered $26 billion. (Scott Mlyn/CNBC)
The offer comes as Paramount’s directors are weighing a merger with Skydance.
Apollo Global Management is considering making an offer for National Amusements Inc., the Redstone family company that controls film and TV giant Paramount Global.
He maintains that Apollo Global Management will have no role in running the combined company, following the $5.4 billion merger with Tegna.
The NewsGuild-CWA is asking President Biden to urge the FCC to block the purchase of Tegna TV stations by investment fund Standard General and Apollo Global Management. The guild, the nation’s largest union representing journalists, told the President in an open letter circulated widely Thursday (June 2) that the deal “would kill journalism jobs, undermine local news and raise prices for American families.”
Exclusives
Roku Inc. has teamed with private-equity firm Apollo Global Management to bid for a minority stake in the pay TV and streaming service Starz, which is known for series like Outlander and Power, according to people familiar with the situation.
Apollo Global Management Inc. is considering participating in a bid for Twitter Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, after Elon Musk’s $43 billion bid put the social-media company in play. Apollo, one of the world’s largest buyout firms, has held discussions about backing a possible deal for Twitter and could provide Musk or another bidder like private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LP with equity or debt to support an offer, the people said.
Kim Gets A Win In Tegna Buy, But Will Journalism Lose?
Hedge fund investor Soo Kim takes a long-sought prize in Tegna’s sale to Standard General and Apollo Global Management. The deal has many layers to tease out and potential regulatory headwinds, along with questions about the new regime’s depth of commitment to news.
Standard General and Apollo Global Management are closing in on a roughly $9 billion deal for television station owner Tegna, sources close to the situation say. The buyers and Tegna have cleared what sources saw as the major stumbling block: how much the Standard General-Apollo team would need to pay if the deal takes more than a year to clear the FCC and other regulators.
Tegna has hit a roadblock in negotiations with suitors who are looking to buy the company in a deal worth $8.4 billion, sources close to the situation say.
An auction of the Tegna TV station empire has been thrown into doubt as the company has questioned whether a prospective sale to a leading bidder would face antitrust concerns from U.S. regulators.
Tegna Inc. said it had received takeover offers after a report that private equity giant Apollo Global Management Inc. and one of the broadcaster’s largest shareholders had made a bid to buy the company.
Apollo Global Management said Wednesday that it has completed its purchase of internet icon Yahoo — formerly Verizon Media — for about $5 billion, from Verizon Communications. As part of the deal, Verizon will retain a 10% ownership interest in the new company. Verizon and Apollo first announced the deal in May, and the sale includes ad tech assets.
Verizon will sell Verizon Media, which consists of the pioneering tech platforms, to Apollo Global Management in a $5 billion deal.
Verizon is exploring a sale of its media assets, including potentially parts of Yahoo and AOL businesses, people familiar with the matter say. Private-equity firms including Apollo are among the possible bidders.
Leon Black’s surprise exit from the helm of Apollo Global Management last month came just days after several directors on the private-equity giant’s board learned of accusations of sexual harassment against him by a woman he claimed was trying to shake him down over a “consensual affair.”
Leon Black, the Wall Street billionaire who was the main client of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein for the last decade of his life, is stepping down as chief executive of Apollo Global Management, several months ahead of schedule.
An inquiry’s finding that Leon Black (l), the billionaire boss of Apollo Global Management, paid convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (r) $158 million touched off an attempt to remove him.
A group representing U.S. pension funds says the head of an Apollo Global Management committee overseeing the investigation of CEO Leon Black’s ties to late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is not independent.
Leon Black, the billionaire chief executive of Apollo Global Management, on Thursday offered a history of his ties to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, his most detailed public account yet of a relationship that sparked renewed concern among his firm’s shareholders and fund investors in recent weeks.
It keeps getting worse for Leon Black. Over the past week, Black’s giant investment firm, Apollo Global Management Inc., has confronted one question after another about his decades-long relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Apollo Global Management and its chief executive, Leon Black, have agreed to appoint an external counsel to review his ties with late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the buyout firm said on Wednesday.
Apollo Global Management’s Leon Black, whose $9 billion fortune could buy the best counsel in the world, paid at least $50 million to Jeffrey Epstein for advice and services after most others had deserted him.
The race to acquire TV station owner Tegna Inc. hinges not just on the price suitors are willing to pay, but also on how much they may give up in terms of assets to win regulatory approval, people familiar with the matter said. All three bidders own TV stations that regulators would require to be divested because of the potential overlap, the sources added.
When Dish Network lost 18 Apollo Global-owned Cox Media Group stations on Jan 18 (formerly Northwest Broadcasting stations), it managed to keep 13 Cox Media Group stations from going dark on its lineup thanks to a temporary restraining order issued by Illinois state court. But in the latest turn of events, Cox is suing Dish for copyright infringement for the continued carriage of those stations, which include Atlanta’s WSB and Orlando’s WFOX.
Dish Network said that its subscribers lost access to the signal from stations bought by Apollo Global Management in 10 markets at 7 p.m. Saturday as retransmission consent negotiations failed. Apollo acquired the stations from Northwest Broadcasting last year.
The private equity CEO with a fearsome reputation skates on the edges of other people’s catastrophes and manages to walk away richer.
The Cox Media stations acquired by Apollo Global Management have been blacked out to subscribers to Verizon’s FiOS as the result of a retransmission consent fee dispute. Verizon’s deal with the stations expired Tuesday at midnight.
FCC Rule Being Used To Shrink Paper Schedule
Want to get around a regulation that limits who can own a daily newspaper? Just make it a less-than-daily newspaper.
The FCC has backed equity firm Apollo Global Management’s takeover of TV and radio stations owned by Cox Enterprises and Northwest Broadcasting. The FCC approved the transactions, totaling almost $3.5 billion, sought by Apollo-controlled Terrier Media Buyer Inc. Media advocacy groups Common Cause and United Church of Christ opposed the deal, arguing it would reduce local media content and viewpoint diversity.
The FCC held a meeting with private equity firm Apollo Global Management this week to ask questions about its agreement to finance New Media Investment’s planned purchase of Gannett Co., the publisher of USA Today, sources say. The FCC is concerned that the $1.8 billion loan Apollo is providing to finance the merger could violate its duopoly laws, sources say.
According to a statement released by the station group, Apollo has proposed first acquiring Tegna and later merging it with Cox Media Group. Apollo struck a deal to acquire Cox in February, but that deal has not yet closed.
Cox Enterprises will retain a minority in the new company substantially owned by Apollo Global Management.
The group says the proposed station buys by Terrier Media, controlled by Apollo Global Management, of properties of Northwest Broadcasting and Cox Broadcasting will “impede competition and diversity and raise prices for consumers.” It urges the FCC to study what it calls “public interest harms” if the deals are approved.
Meredith Corp. is preparing to explore a sale of its portfolio of TV stations as it looks to streamline its business, people familiar with the matter tell Reuters. Meredith is discussing its plans with financial advisers and has already received interest in its stations from private equity firm Apollo Global Management, the sources say.
His company, Apollo Global Management, has scooped up 29 television stations across the country. When Apollo lost a key deal, “they were pretty ripshit.” But the march continues.
According to FCC filings, Terrier Media, a new company created by an Apollo private equity fund, will pay $3.1 billion for the Cox broadcast stations, but that number will be reduced by the value of the still unspecified amount of equity that Cox will retain in the stations. In the end, the Apollo fund will hold 77% of the Terrier equity, while Cox and Northwest Broadcasting, another station group Terrier is rolling up, will split the other 23%. Terrier will keep current Cox managment and be based in Atlanta.
