Viacom Sinks Further After Pricing Stock Offering By Investing.com

By Christiana Sciaudone

Investing.com — Viacom tumbled further on Wednesday after pricing a giant stock sale.

Shares were down almost 20% after pricing a stock offering at $85 per common share. The stock had already tumbled on Tuesday, and ViacomCBS (NASDAQ:VIAC) is down about 25% since hitting a record last week. Shares had rallied more than 600% from March 2020 to that all-time high.

ViacomCBS said in a filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it expects $1.67 billion from the sale of 20 million Class B common shares, plus nearly $1 billion from a concurrent sale of convertible preferred stock.

The proceeds would go to investments in streaming and other corporate purposes. The company’s streaming service, Paramount+, recently came to market, one of the last big names to start providing the service. The company is facing powerful competitors in the form of Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Disney+, which is growing at a quick pace.

ViacomCBS predicted the company will hit up to 70 million customers by the end of 2024 with all of its streaming services, according to Deadline. That compares to Disney+’s almost 95 million subscribers as of January, and Netflix’s more than 200 million paid memberships.