The public battle between Viacom (VIA-B) and CBS (CBS-A) chairman Sumner Redstone and daughter Shari has brought forth questions of succession and future control of the company.
In reality, unless Shari is removed from the boards of the two companies, it looks like there's nothing Sumner can legally do to change the circumstances.
After Sumner divorced his wife Phyllis, he put Shari in as his successor in a trust called the SMR Trust which allows Shari to take over the company at her dad's death if she's still on the board. Sumners only strategy could be to remove her from the board.
At the age of 84, it doesn't make any business sense for Sumner Redstone not to have a succession plan in place that he stays with. Redstone has had a history of 
control issues with CEOs of the company and removing his son from the business.
In the short term this isn't affecting the ratings of the two companies, as CBS retains it 'BBB/A-2' according to S&P, while Viacom's rating has also held at 'BBB/A-2.'
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