If you were wondering why Seagram heir Edgar Bronfman Jr. suddenly abandoned his bid to acquire entertainment giant Paramount (PARA), new information has come to light. Indeed, reports suggest that Bronfman was putting together the more fleshed-out offer, which, at the time, was due this week. But rather than file the expanded offer, Bronfman instead pulled the plug on the entire process. At the time, this struck many as odd; why pull out of the entire process when the process would have finished organically within a week or so? But the reports also note that Bronfman ultimately ran out of time.
Further, the coalition that Bronfman put together was starting to lose investors. In fact, he was looking to bolster his bid to $6 billion, but with elements of the coalition pulling out, the ability to make that bid was under fire. Bronfman could only ultimately pull together about $5 billion, noted a CNBC report.
A Real Krabby Patty Is Coming to Wendy’s
In a separate development, there are some who believe that most of Nickelodeon—a Paramount property—runs on SpongeBob SquarePants reruns now. It is true that Nickelodeon derives a lot of benefits from SpongeBob, but it is about to get even more reliant on that same underwater pineapple-dweller. Paramount is getting together with Wendy’s (WEN) to produce an authentic Krabby Patty.
Yes, the iconic hamburger prepared by the sponge fry cook is set to come out this fall. Moreover, Wendy’s is also set to release a new Frosty flavor to go along with it: Pineapple Under the Sea. Neither Paramount nor Wendy’s would comment on the upcoming release, but it is a safe bet that such a package would get plenty of children interested in showing up to eat.
Is Paramount a Good Stock to Buy Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Sell consensus rating on PARA stock based on three Buys, eight Holds, and eight Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 28.4% loss in its share price over the past year, the average PARA price target of $12.06 per share implies 13.19% upside potential.
