Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Porter Bibb on Viacom: Dauman Is On The Down Escalator (Audio)

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Porter Bibb on Viacom: Dauman Is On The Down Escalator (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: and that's a Bloomberg Business Flash. You're listening to Taking
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  Speaker 1: Stop with Kathleen Hay and Pim Fox on Bloomberg Radio. Viacom,
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  Speaker 1: Viacom and Sumner Redstone. While Viacom projecting poor results for
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  Speaker 1: its quarter ending this month, but the company shares well,
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  Speaker 1: they seem to be following the potential moves of the
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  Speaker 1: chief executive, Philippe Dowmon. Is he closer to an exit? Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's find out more from Porter Bib. He is managing
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  Speaker 1: Partner Media Tech Capital Partners. You can be followed on
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  Speaker 1: Twitter at Porter three. Al Right, Porter Bib, give us
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  Speaker 1: your estimate of Philippe Dowmon. Will he be the chief
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  Speaker 1: executive of Viacom come Labor Day? Absolutely not. He's on
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  Speaker 1: the down escalator right now and they're holding the exit
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  Speaker 1: doors wide open for him. He's his only hope right now, Frankly,
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  Speaker 1: is the delays that the three or four legal actions
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  Speaker 1: that are pending right now might take over the course
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  Speaker 1: of a slow summer. But he's definitely out of the picture. Well,
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  Speaker 1: why why did he do this? I mean, why did
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  Speaker 1: why did uh revsone decided this was time for him
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  Speaker 1: to go? Well, I'm not sure it was entirely Sumner's decision.
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  Speaker 1: I think Sherry Redstone, who has made a rapprochement with
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  Speaker 1: her father after many, many years of estrangement, she has
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  Speaker 1: a very clear picture of the fact that over the
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  Speaker 1: last five years Phil Dolman has lost almost half of
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  Speaker 1: the share value, the market value of Vehicom, and he's
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  Speaker 1: shown absolutely no inclination of being able to reverse that trend. Porter,
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  Speaker 1: what if you could tell us about the actual businesses
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  Speaker 1: and whether they will be combined if indeed Mr donmin
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  Speaker 1: leaves Viacom. Well, there there's a lot of talk right
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  Speaker 1: now on the street about putting CBS and Viacom together
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  Speaker 1: when they were split. Um, when half a dozen years
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  Speaker 1: ago Redstone thought he could take one and one and
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  Speaker 1: create four or five out of separate entities. That hasn't happened.
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  Speaker 1: One and one now equal about one and a half um,
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  Speaker 1: not two and less. Moonviz is uh the real star
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  Speaker 1: of this sort of tale because he's done miracles with
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  Speaker 1: CBS with without any real global franchise, without a whole
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  Speaker 1: lot of content creativity beyond the basic CBS network. UH,
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  Speaker 1: and he's shown a very daring and leadership position in
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  Speaker 1: terms of network chief executives in going over the top
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  Speaker 1: before and separately from his competition. So you just said
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  Speaker 1: that you didn't think that Sherry Redstone wants to run
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  Speaker 1: the company. You have that, Well, that's that's her declared position.
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  Speaker 1: She She has met frequently with Domin and with with
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  Speaker 1: Moonves and is pretty articulate about the fact that she's
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  Speaker 1: trying to preserve the value of the Redstone trust and
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  Speaker 1: maximize the value that Domin is seeing dissipate every day
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  Speaker 1: in Vehicom. So if that's the case, and with the
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  Speaker 1: potential alst of these five Viacom directors, what do you
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  Speaker 1: think is motivating Sherry Redstone value? She she wants to
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  Speaker 1: get the best value she can for Vehcom. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think she ever intends and never has intended to uh
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  Speaker 1: get involved in direct management. She's vice chairman right now
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  Speaker 1: of both companies and she's going to uh do whatever
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  Speaker 1: she can to maximize the value of Vehicom. CBS is
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  Speaker 1: probably fully valued right now with not a lot of
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  Speaker 1: growth opportunity. The word on the street is that these
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  Speaker 1: companies have to come back together. Um Les Mondos is
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  Speaker 1: not particularly enamored at that idea, but I think that
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  Speaker 1: it's very likely that there once the Dolman situation is
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  Speaker 1: resolved and the new board that Redstone has nominated, UM, well,
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  Speaker 1: it takes place, and that that's sometime late summer. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: He's done a very judicious and and appropriate job of
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  Speaker 1: getting approval of the Delaware Chancery Court, and that that
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  Speaker 1: might take six or eight weeks. But once the new boy,
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  Speaker 1: which is a highly competent independent board is in place,
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  Speaker 1: Dolman's gone. The old board, which is heavily uh leaning
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  Speaker 1: towards Mr Dolman, will also vacate. Then there will be
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  Speaker 1: a move to put the companies together, and that will
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  Speaker 1: probably trigger uh the interest of some white knight acquirers,
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  Speaker 1: of which there is no limit. Well, there is this
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  Speaker 1: the time to buy Vehicom. I think you're already seeing
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  Speaker 1: the stock going went up a little bit better than
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  Speaker 1: one percent today just on on the news of of uh,
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  Speaker 1: the the change of board members at Redstone and announced yesterday.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's you have to realize that this is
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  Speaker 1: a content company. Vehicom has a terrific underperforming cable networks MTV, Nickelodeon,
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  Speaker 1: b ET, Comedy Central. They are certainly terrific brands that
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  Speaker 1: have seen better days, but they still have a great
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  Speaker 1: value in terms of the archival content and the potential
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  Speaker 1: under new management to become very, very prominent over the
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  Speaker 1: top um distribution channels. Again, they also have Paramount Pictures,
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  Speaker 1: which Dolman has tried to find a minority investor in
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  Speaker 1: and somebody is going to see that is not only
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  Speaker 1: a huge library of great product, but a potential global
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  Speaker 1: motion picture company. Porter big thank you so much for
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  Speaker 1: joining us managing partner Media Tech Capital Partners. Thank you
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