(Reuters) -Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of TV giant Paramount Global, has reached a tentative agreement to sell her stake in the company to David Ellison’s Skydance Media, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.
Skydance is holding exclusive talks with a panel of independent directors at Paramount as part of a provisional accord to buy the Redstone family’s holding company National Amusements, the report added.
In January, a source told Reuters Skydance Media CEO David Ellison, son of Oracle (NYSE:) co-founder Larry Ellison, was exploring an all-cash bid to acquire National Amusements.
National Amusements directly or indirectly owns 77% of the voting shares of Paramount, giving it control of the firm’s 100-year-old film studio and networks such as CBS and MTV.
Paramount, Skydance and a spokesperson for media mogul Shari Redstone did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.