Fredric G. Reynolds has changed his mind.
After resigning late last month to join Evercore Partners, a financial advisory firm, Reynolds will return to Viacom to become CFO and executive vice president and of the new CBS Corp. after Viacom is split into two publicly traded companies. Further, he will return for an interim period to his former job of running the Viacom Television Stations Group, where he served as president since March 2001. He will be responsible for all financial operations of the company.
In the period before the split of Viacom, he will also work with Leslie Moonves, co-president and co-chief operating officer, Viacom, Inc. and chairman of CBS, who will be the chief executive officer of that new entity.
After Viacom is divided, CBS will include the CBS and UPN broadcast TV networks, the Paramount television productions, Infinity Radio, theme parks, and other units, according to Marketwatch.com. The other company, Viacom Inc., will consist of cable networks, Paramount motion pictures, and home video units.
” Fred’s skill set goes well beyond those of more traditional CFOs, and I expect to rely on him broadly to help me strategize, operate and drive results at the various business units which will make up the new CBS Corporation,” said Moonves. “He was absolutely instrumental in the formation of the new enterprise, and there’s no question that we’re a whole lot stronger with him than without him.”
Moonves told The Wall Street Journal that Reynolds’s departure was a “bad dream,” admitting the resignation caught him off guard and that he spent the last several weeks wooing him back. “I didn’t want him to leave,” Moonves told the paper, noting that Reynolds “is a significant guy in the separation” of CBS.
“Leaving the Viacom/CBS family and all the wonderful relationships formed over the last 12 years was far more difficult than I ever imagined,” Reynolds said.
Before becoming president of the Viacom Television Stations Group, Reynolds had been executive vice president and CFO of Viacom Inc. There he was responsible for a gamut of Viacom’ financial functions that included treasury, accounting, internal audit, insurance and risk management, tax, mergers and acquisitions, information systems, and financial planning and business analysis.
He had served as executive vice president and CFO of CBS Corp., since December 1997. He was named executive vice president and CFO, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, in February 1994.
Reynolds joined Westinghouse after 13 years at PepsiCo Inc., where he served in a number of finance posts, including senior vice president and CFO for PepsiCo Foods International, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay unit. He was also CFO at such other PepsiCo units as Kentucky Fried Chicken, PepsiCola International, and Pizza Hut.