By James Warrington, The Telegraph | Bill Ackman is an unlikely music mogul. . . . Ackman’s successful investments to date have been largely focused on tech giants such as Uber and Meta, as well as the unglamorous world of mortgage-backed securities. Yet Ackman is attempting to pull off an audacious swoop for Universal, the world’s largest record label that is home to best-selling artists including Taylor Swift and Harry Styles.
Ackman, who already holds a 4.5pc stake in Universal through his company Pershing Square, has tabled a $64bn (£48bn) offer to take control of the music giant and shift its stock market listing from Amsterdam to New York.
For the hedge fund tycoon, the move is a way of unlocking value from a company he argues is unloved by the market.
More widely, though, it threatens to accelerate a move by major record labels away from new music and towards the safety of trusted old catalogues, as the unstoppable rise of streaming sounds the death knell for the bygone days of rock ’n’ roll.
Ackman’s complex proposal, made public this week, would see Universal reversed into Pershing’s blank-cheque company and listed on the New York Stock Exchange at a value of around $64bn.
Pershing, which would increase its stake to almost 12pc, has promised to return €9.4bn (£8bn) to shareholders, as well as handing up to €750m to artists by selling Universal’s 3pc stake in Spotify, which is worth around €2.7bn.
. . . . . . . . . .
Go here to read more about how this plan will hopefully work:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/the-60bn-deal-that-spells-the-end-of-rock-n-roll/
