By Keach Hagey and Imani Moise
Sumner Redstone will step down from the Viacom Inc. board of directors in February, the company said Friday, though he will retain his chairman emeritus title.
Mr. Redstone, who is 93 years old and in poor health, controls Viacom and CBS Corp. through a roughly 80% voting stake in each. Earlier this year, he gave up his executive chairman role on the boards of both companies, taking the title of chairman emeritus but keeping his vote.
The move represents the latest step back for Mr. Redstone from a company he once claimed made up his entire identity — his 2001 memoir opens with the battle cry, “Viacom is me” — but which he hasn’t been closely involved in for some time, according to people familiar with the matter.
At CBS, which doesn’t typically file its proxy statement until April, Mr. Redstone still has a vote on the board.
Mr. Redstone’s exact role in Viacom’s affairs continues to be a matter of controversy, as he has been at the center of a series of lawsuits over the past year challenging his mental capacity.
Just this week, his signature appeared alongside that of his daughter, Shari Redstone, on a letter sent by the Redstone family holding company, National Amusements Inc., asking the boards of Viacom and CBS to call off the merger exploration that NAI had requested earlier this fall. That decision coincided with the elevation of Bob Bakish, who had been Viacom’s acting chief executive, to the permanent role, as the battered company sets off to attempt a turnaround on its own.
According to Friday’s regulatory filing, Mr. Redstone received $ 1.3 million in compensation during fiscal 2016 through May 20.
That month, the Viacom board voted to stop paying Mr. Redstone in the wake of a legal fight during which a deposition of the media mogul revealed his difficulties communicating and answering basic biographical questions. That case, in which a former companion of Mr. Redstone challenged his mental capacity, had been dismissed by the judge a week earlier.
In October, Mr. Redstone’s legal team sued two of his former companions for elder abuse, alleging they ” commandeered” his life beginning in 2010 and seeking to reclaim the more than $ 150 million he had given them, according to the complaint. Despite being a plaintiff in that case and another related one, Mr. Redstone has declined to be deposed, citing health reasons.
The legal battles have come amid a power struggle atop Viacom resulting in the ouster of the former CEO Philippe Dauman, the overhaul of Viacom’s board and the rising prominence of Ms. Redstone in the media empire.
That struggle ended in an August settlement that included a $ 72 million golden parachute for Mr. Dauman. According to the proxy, Mr. Dauman earned a total of $ 93 million in fiscal 2016, including his salary, stock and option awards and separation payment.
The settlement also contained an agreement to overhaul Viacom’s board, including the appointment of five new directors and eventual departure of directors George Abrams, William Schwartz, Blythe McGarvie and Frederic Salerno. According to the proxy filing, those four directors won’t be renominated at the next annual meeting.
Viacom shares rose 2.6% to $ 35.86 during morning trading, though they are still down 13% so far this year.
Corrections & Amplifications: A previous version of this article said misstated the first name of Viacom Chief Executive Bob Bakish.
Write to Keach Hagey at keach.hagey@wsj.com and Imani Moise at imani.moise@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires 12-17-160247ET Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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