universal music group
Inside Track: UMG’s Potential US Investor, FTC Knocks Back Ticketmaster Probe
Asking around, one name keeps popping up: Liberty Media, the majority owner of satellite radio provider SiriusXM — itself owner of music streamer Pandora — and 33% of concert promoter Live Nation. Liberty also owns 5% of terrestrial broadcaster iHeartMedia and tried to buy 40% while iHeartMedia was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And despite concerns a larger stake would result in anticompetitive behavior, the Department of Justice approved Liberty’s request to increase its stake beyond 5% in July 2020. Liberty Media could take a piece of UMG and add intellectual property to a “full stack,” vertically-integrated media company. On paper at least, Universal could woo artists by offering exposure on Liberty-owned broadcasters and with concerts on Live Nation-run tours and festivals. It ...
Universal Music’s Spotify Stock Could Be Worth $2B
If it still holds the shares, their current value is $1.45 billion — which would yield a profit of nearly $1.4 billion if sold at Friday’s share price. UMG and the other major labels, Sony Music and Warner Music Group, each took equity as part of their licensing deals that allowed Spotify to launch in the U.S. in 2011. As of Dec. 31, UMG maintained a larger equity stake in Spotify than any of its competitors. Sony Music sold half its 5.707% stake for $768 million following Spotify’s IPO in April 2018, leaving it 5.082 million shares a 2.85% stake at the time — a percentage that would have been diluted since then. (Based on Warner Music, meanwhile, confirmed in August 2018 that it sold its full 4% stake for $504 million. In March 2018 UMG committed to givin...
Vivendi Sets Date for Universal Music Group Spinoff
Shares of Universal Music Group will begin trading on the Amsterdam Euronext market “before or by” Sept. 27, parent company Vivendi revealed on Wednesday (May 12). Vivendi’s proposal for the UMG share distribution will be put to a vote at the company’s shareholders’ meeting on June 22. Vivendi’s largest institutional shareholders “have been calling for the split or distribution” of UMG to better reflect the fast-appreciating value of its music division, according to Wednesday’s report. Vivendi’s own valuation suggests UMG is being grossly undervalued: on Wednesday, Vivendi’s market value on Wednesday was 32.4 billion euros ($39.11 billion), slightly below Vivendi’s estimate of 33 billion euros ($39.84 billion) for UMG — even though UMG accounted for 45.8% of Vivendi’s first-quarter revenue...
Republic Records Forms New Arab Music-Focused Label With The Weeknd Manager Sal Slaiby
Slaiby, who has been pushing on other fronts to boost the profile of Middle Eastern music, founded the new label and will serve as CEO. “It’s been my dream to highlight the talent and culture of Arabic music on a global level with partners that I trust and admire,” he said in a press release. The label, unveiled on Tuesday by Slaiby, UMG Chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge and Republic Records founder and CEO Monte Lipman, will seek to give Middle Eastern music — both from the region and from the diaspora around the world — a more global platform to reach the widest possible audience. Slaiby, a refugee or the Lebanese Civil War who immigrated to Canada at 15, has dramatically raised his profile in the music industry in the past few years. In addition to managing The Weeknd, who had the top son...
Virgin Music Label and Artists Services Launches In Australia
The team Down Under “has a genuine passion for partnering with and servicing the best and most innovative independent artists and labels from around the world,” he adds. Joining Janes at Virgin Music Australia are former Caroline Australia colleagues Sam Cross and Ella Symons, who switch over to the positions of Senior Label Manager (both were Label Relations and Marketing Managers at Caroline), while ex-Caroline label coordinator Claire Tate shifts into the newly-created role as marketing and audience manager. Also, Lachlan Duthie joins as label coordinator, and Juliette Younger and Jodie Grinsted are named media and promotions managers. With the new team in place, enthuses Janes, “we are energized for our biggest year yet, and I cannot wait for this new chapter to begin.” That new chapte...
UMG Signs Expanded Licensing Deal with African Streaming Service Boomplay
Under the deal, UMG content will now be available via Boomplay in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Congo, DRC, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea Conakry, Guinea- Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Sao Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Tchad, Togo and Zimbabwe. Markets covered under the 2018 agreement were Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. “Since our original deal with UMG, the African music industry has seen exponential growth and made huge strides towards being the next powerhouse that it should be,” said Boomplay dir...
Introducing LEGO Vidiyo’s Hottest New DJs: Alien, Unicorn, and the Party Llama
Last year The LEGO Group and Universal Music Group announced their new partnership, which seeks to encourage creative expression through both play and music. It wasn’t until this year that we learned the exciting venture would include a brand new platform called LEGO Vidiyo, which brings the illustrious brand into the world of augmented reality. Now, the platform is ready to unveil its first range of products. With LEGO Vidiyo, users are able to create their own music videos using a variety of LEGO kits, Minifigures, and AR technology. They call these products Bandmates, BeatBoxes, and BeatBits. Fans will be able to purchase six unique and portable BeatBoxes, which include a Minifigure that represents a specific music genre, a scanning stage, two special Beat...
It’s a Growth Story: What’s Behind UMG’s Accelerated IPO Plans?
Vivendi could earn about 9 billion euros ($10.9 billion) from the IPO, if it maintains majority ownership by unloading just just under 30% of UMG at the same 30 billion euros ($36.3 billion) valuation used last year when it sold a 20% stake to a consortium led by Chinese tech giant Tencent Corp. At that head-turning 36-times EBTIDA valuation, a multiple often seen in fast-growing tech companies, Tencent “made people take a step back and look at the valuations of music companies,” says Michael Poster, the head of Michelman & Robinson’s corporate and securities department. That’s not an unreasonable valuation: a rapidly-growing streaming market, believed by Goldman Sachs to reach 1.15 billion subscribers...
Vivendi Planning to Move Forward With UMG IPO This Year
The idea is to avoid the so-called “conglomerate discount,” under which a company could be valued by the market as less than the sum of its parts — especially by investors looking for more direct exposure to the music sector at a time when streaming is fueling growth and optimism. “This plan is the result of the joint efforts in recent years by the Vivendi and the Universal Music Group, under the leadership of Sir Lucian Grainge, to further the company’s position as the music industry’s undisputed leader,” Vivendi said in a letter about the move that was shared internally at Universal by Grainge, the company’s chairman and CEO. “Recently the successful opening of UMG’s share capital to an international consortium led by Tencent has confirmed its attractiveness with strategic investor...
Rapper Jawara Headley sues Nicki Minaj for song ‘Rich Sex’
Nicki Minaj may have ushered in 2021 with adorable baby pictures of her son but the rapper has legal woes as she has been sued for $200 million. The lawsuit is over her song “Rich Sex” which Queens rapper and songwriter Jawara Headley says she stole from him after he played it for her. Jawara who goes by the name Brinx Billions is suing Nicki alongside Universal Music Group, Young Money, and Cash Money for damages. In court documents obtained by TMZ, Jawara who is already credited as a writer of “Rich Sex” according to the ASCAP database claims that he let Nicki listen to his version of “Rich Sex” in 2016. He also claims that he is the sole author/creator/composer/writer/producer of “Rich Sex” and Nicki told him it would be extremely marketable and become a global hit. The rapper and songw...
Universal Music Group, Concord Extend Global Distribution Deal
“UMG and Concord have built a wonderful relationship over the past 15 years,” comments Concord CEO Scott Pascucci in a statement. “As we have grown, they have provided the support that we needed to expand the worldwide success of our frontline labels, the KIDZ BOP franchise, Craft Recordings, and the rest of our catalog. We are very pleased to be renewing this partnership with Universal.” Adds Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group: “Our partnership with Concord is built on a foundation of shared values. We both put artists and creativity at the center of everything we do.” Grainge continues, “I couldn’t be happier to extend our partnership and l look forward to even more success working with Scott, Tom, Sig and the entire Concord team.” The independent Concord music gro...
Lucian Grainge’s Year-End Memo: An ‘Incredibly Difficult’ 2020, Label Successes & His COVID-19 Scare
Taking his time to get to the usual accolades (of which there were plenty for the world’s leading music company), instead he focused on the power of music in trying times, noting, “I want this year-end note to remind each of you of the instrumental part you played in bringing to the world something powerful, inspiring, uplifting, and yes, universal: music. A force for good unlike any other in the world.” Grainge then highlighted other kinds of achievements that his company can tout, taking action during the year’s multitude of crises: “organizing, volunteering, educating, donating,” as he listed off, detailing how Universal responded to the pandemic, the nation’s racial reckoning and the election. Universal donated to a swath of organizations and d...
