Paramount stock surges on report of $11B offer for studio

Shares of Paramount Global (PARA) closed nearly 12% higher following a report from The Wall Street Journal that Apollo Global Management (APO) made an $11 billion bid for the company's film and TV studio. That offer is more than Paramount's $8.66 billion market cap, as of Wednesday's close. It's the latest in what has been a string of reported offers for the entertainment giant.

Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal reports on the latest developments.

Note: Apollo Global Management is a majority owner of Yahoo, Yahoo Finance's parent company.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Stephanie Mikulich.

Video Transcript

JOSH LIPTON: Paramount Global reportedly receiving an $11 billion bid from private equity firm, Apollo, to purchase its Hollywood studio. That's according to the Wall Street Journal. To note, Apollo is the parent company of Yahoo Finance.

Our senior media reporter Alexandra Canal joins us now with the details. Ale.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Hey, Josh, yes, so $11 billion for its film. And TV studio shares closed up nearly 12% on the report. But just to put this number into context here.

Paramount's current market cap is 8.65 billion. So this $11 billion bid is significantly higher than the market cap of the whole company for just a segment of the business. So something that I think Shari Redstone is going to have to seriously consider here.

For background, the Redstone family does control paramount through its holding company National Amusements. Paramount had no comment on the report. Apollo did not immediately respond to the request.

But this is one media company where rumors have swirled when it comes to a potential acquisition. Paramount not the only name here. We also have production company. Skydance Media reportedly interested.

And they have a pretty unique deal of what they would want to do. They'd want to gain control of National Amusements and then do a secondary deal to merge Skydance with Paramount. So sort of a 2-step deal there.

We've also heard from media mogul, Byron Allen. He's very interested in the linear side of the business, which is interesting considering that's sort of dying right now amid the streaming boom. Warner Brothers Discovery, another name that's been thrown around.

So a lot of potential offers on the table. But it's all going to come down to what Shari wants to do. She's been pretty hesitant to break up the company. She's interested in selling paramount as a whole, as a unit. And this Apollo deal, they're only interested in the studio side, the Hollywood side, the moviemaking business.

JULIE HYMAN: I want to dig into the valuation as you just mentioned. $11 billion just for that part.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah.

JULIE HYMAN: Which implies that they see more value there than the market is describing. Do we know why? In other words, do analysts think it's undervalued? Do analysts think that Paramount is this jewel of an asset that is sort of lumped in with the rest of Paramount?

ALEXANDRA CANAL: I think it all comes down to the IP. I mean, Paramount has produced a lot of great Hollywood hits. The Top Gun SQL, for example, was one of the highest movies over the past few years.

And then you also have Yellowstone and the success of that series. So I think the IP is very attractive. They have that built-in audience for a lot of that programming.

Now, this report said that Apollo could team up with other companies to finance the deal? Maybe other companies are interested in acquiring that library, that content. You can look at something like Amazon's purchase of MGM. That really helped boost their Amazon Prime Video service.

So I think we're in an era where there's a lot of streaming companies at the market. Content is King at the end of the day. If you can't get that recognizable content, the films, the TV shows that people are attracted to and bring them to your service as the exclusive owner of that, why wouldn't you want to pursue something like that?

So to that point, I do think it might be undervalued. I'm curious if we're going to see any notes that come out any analysts reaction to this when it comes to that valuation point. Because now that number is out there, that means it's going to be expensive for any other company who's interested in potentially purchasing this.

JOSH LIPTON: All right. Good one, Ale. Thank you. Appreciate it.