Paramount CEO to step down after 12 years

Brad Grey would step down as the chairman and chief executive officer of Viacom Inc’s Paramount Pictures film studio, the company said on Wednesday.

Viacom is starting a search to identify a successor, and Grey, who headed Paramount Pictures for 12 years, will remain at the studio for a period to support the transition.

Grey’s departure from the studio comes after years of underperformance, producing box office bombs such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and Ben-Hur.

The change in leadership follows a year of distractions for the studio as it was at the centre of a bruising power struggle between Viacom’s controlling shareholder, Sumner Redstone, and his daughter, Shari, and Viacom’s former chief executive, Philippe Dauman.

The battle began when Dauman, who resigned in August, proposed selling a stake in Paramount against Redstone’s wishes.

Last month, Grey helped to arrange a deal for two Chinese film companies, Shanghai Film Group (SFG) and Huahua Media, to invest $1 billion in Paramount, giving the studio muchneeded cash and support as it attempts to grow.

As part of the agreement, SFG and Huahua Media will finance a combined 25% of all of Paramount’s films for the next three years, with the option to extend to a fourth year.

The Chinese studios will share in the economic returns of the films, but details were not provided.

During his tenure at Paramount, Grey was responsible for a seven-year marketing distribution deal with Marvel Comics and the 2008 acquisition of DreamWorks SKG for $1.6 billion, from which Paramount got the Transformers franchise.

However in recent years, the studio has struggled.

Grey is the latest executive to leave Viacom. In December, Denise Denson, the head of distribution for Viacom, left.

In January, longtime Viacom executive Doug Herzog, a 25-year veteran who oversaw Comedy Central and MTV, left. And last month, Michael Fricklas, general counsel, announced his departure.