With the deal between entertainment giant Paramount (PARA) and Skydance now pretty much settled, some of the post-mortem is starting to emerge about select deals that did not fly. And Sony (SONY) recently spilled the tea on what happened with its part. The news was not helpful to Paramount, meanwhile, down nearly 1.5% in Friday afternoon’s trading.
It will come as no surprise what Tony Vinciquerra wanted out of Paramount: IP. That’s the abbreviation for, “intellectual property.” Sony was interested in Paramount because it had a litany of titles and developed properties under its control, and picking up Paramount would have, in turn, given Sony access to a whole lot of property.
Meanwhile, Sony’s plan for Paramount would have looked like a corporate raid. Paramount+ would have been merged with whatever partner they could find to do the job, CBS and the cable networks would have been sold off, and the Paramount lot itself would have been sold for a production facility. Given that Sony already has one streaming partner in Crunchyroll, the anime-heavy service, it is little surprise that Sony wanted property to put on that service.
Another Paramount Departure
On top of all this, Paramount lost another senior staffer. Erin Calhoun, formerly in charge of Showtime and Paramount’s streaming operations’ communications, left the company after seven years. She will be formally out at the end of September, which suggests she may have filed around two weeks’ notice.
Reasons for the departure were short on the ground, but the departure seems to be about as amicable as could be asked for. Memos were released not only from Calhoun herself, but also from Tom Ryan, president and CEO of Paramount’s streaming operations. The news also comes after several cuts were made throughout the company. Whether she was dismissed or was departing to perhaps save some others the same fate is unclear.
Is PARA Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on PARA stock based on three Buys, eight Holds and seven Sell ratings assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 21.16% loss in its share price over the past year, the average PARA price target of $12.13 per share implies 17.71% upside potential.
