Sumner Redstone, billionaire media tycoon, dead at age 97

Source: CNBC

Sumner Redstone, the media mogul who built his family’s drive-in theater chain into a multibillion-dollar empire encompassing CBS and Viacom and later became the center of a jilted lover’s lawsuit that nearly cost his family his financial legacy, has died. He was 97.

Redstone, who often boasted that would live forever, died Tuesday, according to a statement from National Amusements released Wednesday morning.

Sumner Redstone was a media mogul who built his family’s drive-in theater chain into a multibillion-dollar empire encompassing CBS and Viacom. In his 90s, he became the center of a jilted lover’s lawsuit that nearly cost his family his financial legacy.

Redstone controlled about 80 percent of the voting stock of Viacom and CBS through his private holding company, National Amusements. In November 2019, his fortune was estimated at $3.9 billion. By Dec. 5, 2019, the first day of trading for the remarried ViacomCBS, it had dropped to a still formidable $2.6 billion. And in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, it was valued at $3 billion in May 2020.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/12/sumner-redstone.html