Cultura Voice

  In the 24 hours since Bob Dylan sold his peerless songwriting catalog to Universal Music Group for a nine-figure sum, discussion has, understandably, centered on Dylan himself. I keep hearing the same two questions: Will this affect the way fans digest his music? (No, but expect to hear his hits in more perfume commercials.) And what might have been Dylan’s motivation for selling his crown jewels now? (Music catalogs are fetching all-time-high prices, he’s nearly 80 years old, and Joe Biden may significantly hike taxes on big U.S. asset sales when he becomes president.) What hasn’t drawn as much attention is the motivation of the buyer, Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), which my sources indicate paid closer to $400 million than $300 million to get Dylan’s 600 songs. Obviously, Dylan’s catalog is one of the most evergreen collections of music to ever be committed to notation. As Universal boss Sir Lucian Grainge said in an internal email yesterday: “In an instant, we have f...

On Friday (June 12), spotted via an SEC filing that Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) had acquired 4 million Class A shares in Warner Music Group in a transaction worth around $100m. Those 4m shares equated to 5.2% of outstanding Class A shares, and 0.8% of Warner Music Group as an entire company. We’ve subsequently learned, via an additional filing also lodged with the SEC on Friday (see below), that China’s Tencent Holdings – the majority owner of TME – has itself acquired a separate stake in Warner of the same size as TME’s (4 million shares / 0.8% of Warner’s company). Tencent Holdings did so via its 100% subsidiary, Huang River Investment Ltd. Both of these transactions took place on Wednesday, June 3, the day Warner floated a portion of its company on the Nasdaq. And both of them were worth circa $100m. This means that the Wall Street Journal’s earlier report suggesting that Tencent was considering a $200m acquisition of WMG shares was right on the money. It ...

Resso, the music streaming app owned by TikTok parent Bytedance, has today (March 4) publicly launched in India, taking on the likes of SPOT, plus Gaana, JioSaavn and Apple Music in the market. Resso  reportedly launches in India with a split price offering: there’s a free-to-use tier which offers music streaming at 128kbps, while a paid tier is available for Rs 99 ($1.35) per month on Android and Rs 119 ($1.62) per month on iOS. Both paid options offer streaming up to 256kbps with no advertising. The launch of Resso in India has been licensed by the likes of Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Beggars Group and Merlin, as well as large local India-based rightsholders such as T-Series, Saregama, Zee Music, Times Music and Tips. Notice a company name missing there? Yup: Universal Music Group. As TechCrunch points out, UMG is set to sell 10% of its business (possibly up to 20% over the course of time) to Tencent Holdings Ltd, following the ...

Belgium-based, independent music trade body IMPALA has said that it is ‘gearing up to oppose Tencent’s buyout of a 10% stake of Universal Music Group.’ The European organization argues that ‘the impact of such a sale would change the whole music ecosystem’, and that smaller companies will be at a competitive disadvantage. In a statement issue today (November 26), IMPALA, which represents over 4,000 independent music companies and national associations, says that it is also ‘concerned about who might buy the additional UMG stakes that are up for grabs’. Tencent Music Holdings is the majority shareholder of Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), which owns QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo and has an estimated 90% market share of digital music in China. According to TME’s latest Q3 results, it reached a total of 35.4m paying music subscribers in the three months to end of September, while the firm’s online music services – including both streaming and downloads – generated RMB 1.85bn (US $...

The three major music companies are collectively worth more than $85 billion – and they have Tencent to thank. MBW can publish that number with more certainty than we’ve been able to in some time, thanks to last week’s news that China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. has made a bid to acquire 10%-20% of Universal Music Group, at a company-wide valuation for UMG of €30bn ($33.63bn). By default, this approach from Tencent (run by CEO & Chairman, Ma ‘Pony Ma’ Huateng, pictured) has become the first market-tested barometer of what the strategic value of a major music company may be today. Tencent’s bid slaps a 30X multiple on UMG’s EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization) profit figure for the 12 calendar months of 2018 – i.e. the last fiscal year of the music company and its French parent, Vivendi. In February, Universal confirmed its EBITA figure was €902m for this FY2018 period. In order to transition this €902m into an annual EBITDA number, we need ...