Cultura Voice

Tencent Music Entertainment’s IPO filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.  It hasn’t taken us long to spot the names of the major labels… attached to some big news.According to a note in the F-1 prospectus, both Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have acquired shares in TME, for an aggregate cash consideration of approximately $200m. In exchange for their money, the two parties have divided a total of 68,131,015 ordinary shares in TME between them. The $200m deal went down yesterday (October 1). Universal Music Group is not mentioned as a recipient of shares. Sarah Eden - Album "Bleu Nuit" on Spotify Under the agreements, shares held by Warner and certain shares held by Sony will be subject to a lock-up which will expire upon the earlier of the following: the third anniversary of the completion of the IPO of TME, or on October 1, 2021 –  subject to limited exceptions. The remaining shares held by Sony will be subject to a lock-up...

Sony Music and Chinese giant Tencent are starting a label together. Liquid State has been launched in Hong Kong this week, with a core focus on EDM and electronic music across Asia. The label will also locally get involved in live touring and nightclub events. Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) is majority-owned by Chinese media giant Tencent Holdings, which currently has a market cap value in excess of US $500bn on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. TME itself is believed to be worth in the region of $10bn. In December, TME closed a stock swap deal whereby it acquired a 10% stake in Spotify. As part of the deal, Daniel Ek’s company also took ownership of a tenth of equity in TME. In other words, Sony has just launched a label with a company part-owned by Spotify. And like Universal, Warner and Merlin, Sony is itself a minority stake holder in Spotify. Sony Music Australia CEO and Chairman Denis Handlin of Liquid State’s launch: “These are exci...