Should Sumner Redstone Take The Money And Run?

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 20, 7:47AM EST

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Stocks: (VIA)(CBS)(DIS)(TWX)(NWS)

There has been a far amount of speculation recently that both CBS and Viacom could be takeover targets. The purchase of Clear Channel by private equity interests has focused large hedge funds and buyout firms on large radio chains, and that means CBS.

Redstone seems to be a man who can never stomach the people who he puts into the top jobs at his companies. At least not for long.

The media mogul’s daughter,

Shari

, has been mentioned as a possible candidate to take the wheel when the aged Redstone can no longer run the companies.

But, it is difficult to see what, if any credentials she has for the job.

It would not be a bad time to sell CBS and Viacom. CBS trades at $29.80, near its 52-week high. Viacom is not doing quite as well. It trades at just below $40 on a 52-week high/low of $45/$32.42.

The other advantage of seeking a private equity bid is that it might bring some public company buyers out of the woodwork. News Corp, Disney, and Time Warner would almost have to take a look.

Redstone was born in 1923. He acts as it he will live forever. But, even he can’t afford that.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.