Most of the news around Paramount (NASDAQ:PARA) these days has been painstakingly focused on the merger between itself, Skydance Media, or possibly one of the other parties going after it. But in the meantime, there’s still business to be done, and Paramount just took care of some of that with a new carriage deal with Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR). This mundane but necessary bit of business, successfully concluded, sent shares blasting up over 7.5% in the final minutes of Wednesday’s trading.
It’s not a complete deal, at least not yet, anyway. But it was real enough to keep Paramount’s linear television channels on Charter while a deal was being reached. It was an agreement to extend talks and, in the meantime, keep things status quo until the agreement is properly set up. The original deal was set to run out at midnight EST on April 30. The new deal allows both sides a little more time to hash out details, suggesting that a complete deal should follow in fairly short order.
There’s Still a Merger Waiting
Meanwhile, the merger is still actively being considered, with Shari Redstone still seemingly strongly in favor of Skydance, while a coalition of shareholders want more talks with Sony (NYSE:SONY) and Apollo Global Management (NYSE:APO) to see what that offer looks like. In fact, just last Sunday, Skydance and KKR—itself a Skydance investor—offered up $3 billion in cash to pay off both shareholders and debtholders alike.
Reports note that the total value, that payment included, is up around $32 billion. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to each deal, so seeing just which proposition comes out ahead will be worth watching.
Is Paramount Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on BA stock based on six Buys, eight Holds, and seven Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 46.43% loss in its share price over the past year, the average PARA price target of $13.29 per share implies 8.22% upside potential.
