Sumner Redstone, controlling shareholder of Viacom and CBS, is raising $945m by selling off all of his non-voting stakes in the two media companies to pay off debt. The stock sale will leave Redstone with 75% control of both companies, despite cutting his equity stake by a third, and will help avert a fire sale of nearly all the movie theatres he owns through National Amusements, the company that also holds his Viacom and CBS stakes; the company’s $1.6bn of unsecured debt veered towards default last autumn.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 4:39 and is filed under Capital markets, People. Tagged with CBS, Sumner Redstone, viacom. Edit this entry.