Viacom

Viacom

The Viacom family office traces its roots to 1986, when Sumner Redstone took National Amusements from a regional theater chain into a national media powerhouse by acquiring Viacom International. The office now operates as the investment arm for the Redstone family, chaired by Shari Redstone, who succeeded her father after his death in 2020. The office deploys capital across public equity stakes, private equity transactions, real estate, and venture capital. Its largest single asset remains a controlling stake in Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS), valued at roughly $20B in public markets as of 2025. Beyond media, the office has made direct investments in real estate through National Amusements properties and into technology startups such as the streaming platform Pluto TV, which it owned before selling to Paramount. The family office employs a lean team headquartered in New York with a second office in San Francisco. In April 2024, Shari Redstone stepped back from her executive role at Paramount Global as the company pursued a merger with Skydance Media, marking a structural shift away from operational involvement in the media conglomerate toward a pure family office posture (per The New York Times, April 2024). The office does not manage third-party capital. The most notable structural differentiator for this family office is the regulatory overlay: National Amusements sits under the US Securities and Exchange Commission's reporting requirements because it controls a publicly traded company. The family office also structures its charitable work separately through the Sumner M. Redstone Charitable Foundation, which focuses on Jewish causes and medical research.