Believe is taking what it calls “a first step” towards going public via an IPO on the Euronext Paris market, after having its registration document approved by French financial regulator AMF.
Believe said that it is “contemplating” raising around €500m (around $608.5m) from the IPO, although it warned that “the completion of the IPO is subject to the approval of the prospectus relating to the offering by the AMF, as well as favourable market conditions”.
(Given past rumours that Believe was an acquisition target for bigger music industry fish, this IPO pre-announcement may also smoke out anyone willing to swoop in with an offer…)
The prospectus isn’t yet public, but Believe has published some of the figures that will be key to its appeal to investors.
In 2020, Believe generated €728m (886m) from ‘digital music sales’ – the metric it uses to cover payments from digital music services and social media firms – having grown that from €472m in 2018.
In the first quarter of 2021, the company made another €124m, up by 26% year-on-year. It is expecting around 20% organic growth in 2021 as a whole.
Believe now works for more than 850,000 artists – a figure that includes those signed to client labels – and its catalogue generated more than 100bn Spotify streams and 375bn YouTube views in 2020.
“This IPO project would enable us to accelerate our development and continue to pursue our profitable growth trajectory while achieving our mission to help build a better, more diverse, more respectful, more transparent and fairer future for all artists,” said CEO Denis Ladegaillerie.
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Tools :: Wyng
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