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Published On 7 Apr 2026<\/span>7 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Billionaire investor Bill Ackman\u2019s Pershing Square has proposed a takeover of Universal Music Group in a $64bn deal, the latest twist in his nearly five-year quest for the music label giant.<\/p>\n Pershing Square proposed a cash-and-shares offer on Tuesday through its acquisition vehicle that values Universal Music at about 30.40 euros ($35) per share, a 78 percent premium to the last closing price of 17.10 euros ($20), making the deal worth 55.75 billion euros ($64.31bn).<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Universal Music Group (UMG) \u2013 the company behind international superstars, including Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Kendrick Lamar \u2013 is expected to move its listing to New York from Amsterdam, paving the way for more investors, including index funds, to own the company and ultimately lead to more robust earnings and a higher valuation.<\/p>\n Universal Music declined a Reuters news agency request for comment.<\/p>\n For Ackman, one of the world\u2019s most voluble investors, who cemented his fame and fortune as an activist investor, forcefully pushing corporate America to adopt changes, this is a far friendlier approach, investors and industry analysts said.<\/p>\n Even as the music industry is flourishing, UMG\u2019s share price has lagged, something Ackman is pledging to fix with this proposed deal.<\/p>\n Ackman\u2019s letter to Universal Music Group\u2019s board carried a mixed tone, at times complimentary of current management, led by chairman and chief executive Lucian Grainge, and critical of the company\u2019s \u201cunderutilized balance sheet\u201d and handling of its 2.7 billion euro ($3.1bn) investment in Spotify Technology.<\/p>\n Fears of AI disrupting the music industry have played a role in UMG\u2019s lacklustre performance. Its share of the music market has been sliding, and streaming growth is decelerating, Wells Fargo analysts noted. In March, UMG delayed its plans for a US listing.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, Ackman will need the support of UMG\u2019s top shareholders \u2013 Bollore Group, which holds an 18.5 percent stake, and Vivendi, which owns 13.4 percent \u2013 to push through any transaction. China\u2019s Tencent is a significant shareholder. French billionaire Vincent Bollore\u2019s family controls 80 percent of UMG\u2019s voting rights.<\/p>\n Ackman first flirted with Universal Music Group in 2021, when his Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, a shell corporation created to take a private company public, zeroed in on its target. But Ackman shelved the complex deal in the wake of heavy US regulatory scrutiny. Instead, Pershing Square became one of UMG\u2019s biggest investors in 2021, and Ackman sat on its board until last year.<\/p>\n Post transaction, Ackman said Grainge should remain\u00a0Universal\u00a0Music\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n Ackman said he and former Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz met with Grainge over dinner \u201ca couple of weeks ago\u201d to discuss the potential merger.<\/p>\n \u201cLucian encouraged us to send it in,\u201d Ackman said.<\/p>\n Ackman proposed adding new directors, including Ovitz \u2013 who shepherded the careers of Madonna and Michael Jackson \u2013 who would become the board chair. Additionally, two representatives from Pershing Square would get seats, he said, not saying yet whether he would be one of the directors.<\/p>\n Shares of UMG, which is listed in Amsterdam, were up 13 percent on Tuesday, while Bollore Group climbed 5 percent. Shares in Vivendi were up more than 10 percent.<\/p>\n Pershing bought a 10 percent stake in UMG from Vivendi ahead of its 2021 Amsterdam IPO and has since repeatedly pressed for a New York listing, arguing it would boost UMG\u2019s share price and liquidity.<\/p>\n Pershing currently has a 4.7 percent stake, making it UMG\u2019s fourth-biggest shareholder.<\/p>\n UMG\u2019s shares have lost almost a third of their value since its IPO.<\/p>\n Even as global music revenues grow year after year, UMG and other major labels, like Sony and Warner Music, are scrambling to stay competitive as streaming services from Spotify, Amazon, Apple and Deezer take an ever greater share.<\/p>\n They are now also contending with disruptions brought on by the expansion of AI \u2013 from copyright disputes to the advent of song-generating AI tools \u2013 that threaten to upend how music is created, consumed and monetised.<\/p>\n One survey last year found that a staggering 97 percent of listeners could distinguish between AI-generated and human-composed songs.<\/p>\n Under Tuesday\u2019s proposal, Pershing\u2019s SPARC Holdings would merge with UMG, and the new entity would become a Nevada corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026 Billionaire investor Bill Ackman\u2019s Pershing Square has proposed a takeover of Universal Music Group in a $64bn deal, the latest twist in his nearly five-year quest for the music label giant. Pershing Square proposed a cash-and-shares offer on Tuesday through its acquisition vehicle that values Universal Music at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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