Buffett’s Paramount Stock Holding Languishing- Despite 3 Offers

Contributed By: The Big Fat Whale

Despite 3 offers for Paramount Holdings, the stock has been languishing. This is one of the holdings of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

We have touched on Paramount in our previous write-up, where we think that it is worth being on your shortlist due to its valuation. Truth be told, there are now 3 offers tabled for Paramount after our article. We would like to think that is where great minds think alike.

3 Offers for Paramount Holdings

First and foremost, at the current price of 11 dollars, it has a market capitalisation of 7 billion dollars.

It has total debt of close to 15 billion dollars with 2.5 billion dollars in cash.

Skydance Offer

Skydance is led by David Ellison who is the son of Larry Ellison.

Their initial involvement was by trying to acquire National Amusement which owns 77% voting class stock.

This latest offer seems to be taken most seriously as they are currently in an exclusive discussion. Based on the grapevine, it could very well be a merger with an eventual cash infusion by Skydance to bolster the financials to deal with the debt situation ( Paramount debt was recently downgraded to junk status by S&P) based on a Reuters newsflow.

The deal seems more complex with Paramount raising funds to the tune of 3 billion dollars to facilitate this whole transaction. This sounds more like equity fundraising which could lead to a dilution of existing shareholders. Paramount would be the party to initiate the first move by taking over Skydance.

For this deal, the stock is to be continually listed and things would be back to normal with the majority of their assets intact.

There would likely not be a windfall for shareholders through a buyout offer with this deal.

Skydance will try to nurse Paramount’s business back to its glory days. They could be the right partner as they have been collaborating with Paramount from 2009 to 2021.

We can see why this is the preferred deal as Paramount assets are currently depressed. To sell off the assets in such a situation would be less optimal.

Moreover, their debt woes would also affect their negotiation chips.

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Is Paramount Warren Buffett’s Greatest Investment Mistake?

Contributed By: The Big Fat Whale 

• Buffett's Position is Down Close to 60%
• Streaming Business is still in transition
• Huge One-Off Losses from Programming Charges of 2.4 billion dollars
• An Interesting Turnaround Play

 

Paramount has been on a downward spiral since the start of 2021. Even Warren Buffett's endorsement and investment does not aid in slowing the decline. Berkshire Hathaway, as of this write-up, has a 15.4% stake in Paramount which makes it the biggest shareholder.

Based on Barron's estimate, Berkshire got their Paramount stake (93 million shares) at an average price of close to $30. Based on the current price of $12.5, Buffett is down by close to 60%.

The boiling question will be:

Is Paramount going to be Warren Buffett's Greatest Investment Mistake?

 

Video Streaming Industry Growth

Source: Statista

We have no doubt the streaming business is an extremely competitive industry. Only Netflix is able to churn out profits at this juncture.

Also, to keep consumers engaged, new content has to be regularly created in order to prevent subscribers from leaving their streaming network. So all these will require massive investments, not unlike the airline business. Amazon has budgeted 15 billion dollars on content creation for 2023.

Statista estimates that the revenue in the Video Streaming (SVoD) market is projected to reach US$95.88bn in 2023. Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 9.47%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$137.70bn by 2027.

Grand View Research is more optimistic and is projecting an annual growth rate of 21.5% till 2030.

Source: FlixPatrol

Looking at the subscriber numbers, there is lots of room to grow for Paramount as they are currently in 7th position. With the combination of Paramount+ and Showtime, it would make it a more enticing package for consumers to onboard to Paramount's streaming offer.

However, we are of the view that consolidation is likely as there are just too many players. With the price war to gain market share, it will hurt the bottom line and only the fittest will survive. This explains why only Netflix is able to net a profit, likely due to their economies of scale.

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