Sumner Redstone Unloads Nearly $1 Billion in CBS and Viacom Stock

"We won’t sell CBS or Viacom! We don’t have to!"

That was Sumner Redstone speaking at the end of last year. The head of National Amusements, Inc., the company that controls most of Viacom and CBS, was talking to Portfolio's Lloyd Grove. The octogenarian media mogul was responding to critics of (in Grove's words) "an eye-popping" $233 million deal to sell off a ton of his CBS stock.

If eyes popped then, they're probably splattered on the wall across the boardroom today after Redstone unloaded a combined $945 million in CBS and Viacom stock. (The breakdown is $600 million for CBS; $345 million for Viacom.) The moneys from the sale will go to paying off National Amusement's creditors and allow the company to continue operating its 1,500 movie theaters in the United States, the U.K., and Brazil, according to Reuters.

Redstone still has voting control of CBS and Viacom. In a statement, Redstone was quoted as saying, "As a result of our actions, National Amusements will be out of debt with its existing creditors and will still control its most important assets."

Even at 86-years-old (and having recently battled—and he claims, conquered naturally—prostate cancer), Redstone remains extremely involved in his businesses. In 2006, he told Vanity Fair's Bryan Burrough, "The fact is, nothing really important can happen at either [Viacom or CBS] without me clearing it."