Sumner Redstone will be leaving Viacom, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:VIA,VIAB) Board of Directors in 2017.
Sumner Redstone’s health has reportedly been deteriorating and there have been concerns over his mental condition. The announcement that he will leave Viacom, Inc.’s board came through a proxy filing. He will step down in February.
While Sumner Redstone is stepping down from his role at Viacom, Inc., he will still hold the Chairman title. The company says that Redstone won’t be going through re-election following its annual meeting on Feb. 6, 2017.
Sumner Redstone leaving Viacom, Inc.’s Board of Directors comes as the company goes through major management changes. This includes a new CEO after the previous one was ousted. The company is also getting several new directors as old ones are replaced, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The filing from Viacom, Inc. claims that Sumner Redstone will still be active on the Board of Directors, but that he won’t have any voting powers. The 93-year-old businessman hasn’t attended one of the company’s annual investor meetings since 2014.
An unnamed source claims that Sumner Redstone chose to step down on his own. The source didn’t want to be identified due to the matter still being considered private. Redstone has a majority stake in Viacom, Inc. and CBS Corporation (NYSE:CBS), Reuters notes.
Viacom, Inc. and CBS Corporation were recently in talks to merge. However, that is unlikely to happen now. A recent message from National Amusements, the holding firm with majority stakes in the two companies, said that now “is not the right time to merge the companies.”
