A consortium led by Chinese tech giant Tencent has completed its deal to buy another 10% stake in Universal Music Group, valuing the major label at €30bn overall. The consortium now owns 20% of UMG, with majority owner Vivendi saying that the expanded stake “will notably enable UMG to further develop its activities in Asia”.
Vivendi’s announcement also stressed that the plan remains to take Universal public “in early 2022 at the latest”. That’s a sign that the move could happen earlier, this year, and the Financial Times has backed that up in a report. “The group is now looking to take Universal Music public this year,” it claimed, adding that “the music label was also recently approached by a listed blank-cheque company, a move that would have allowed Universal Music to go public via merger with a special purpose acquisition vehicle, Wall Street’s hottest trend”. That would certainly speed the process up, but the report added that a final decision has not been made on how UMG will go public, as well as when.
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