Word: mel
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...also be the first to remind you that there's another reason he got here: because he delivers. "Wherever I've been, it was always about the shareholder, never about Mel," says Karmazin, folding his arms together over a mahogany conference table. "When you're a publicly traded company, your responsibility is to shareholders, employees, advertisers. It didn't matter if I was going to enjoy this deal or not. We didn't need this deal. CBS was a great company with terrific cash flow without Viacom." And Viacom, as company CEO Sumner Redstone will tell you, was doing just...
...Mel Karmazin, 56, wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt and red tie, wants you to believe. And when this former radio-advertising salesman who worked his way through Pace College tells you he didn't need to make this $70 billion deal to merge CBS with Viacom, for a moment you actually believe him. It's the way he leans into what he says and his disarming, wide-toothed smile and how hard he works to make you like him. That's how he does it. And in part, that's how he got to this corner-office suite...
During late-night negotiations at Karmazin's $11.4 million Trump Tower condo, the two men found common ground. Both were self-made entrepreneurs who prided themselves on rising from modest means to head powerful companies. "Sumner and I have parallel interests," says Karmazin. Says Redstone: "I insisted that Mel come along...
Redstone has said he fully intends to be CEO when Karmazin's current contract expires. "Look, Sumner Redstone is one of the four or five corporate geniuses," says radio icon and longtime Karmazin friend Don Imus. "And Mel is in that class with Rupert, Ted and Eisner. We'll see what sort of relationship they have...
...plunks down $36 bil for CBS. What changed? Better to ask what didn't change, and the answer is that at age 76, Redstone, whose heart rate is lower than that of many pro athletes, remains a driven dealmaker obsessed with staying ahead of the pack. CBS chief Mel Karmazin may have "seduced" Redstone into this merger, as both sides note. But Redstone was looking for love. He almost always...