Last month, Vivendi said that it was “analysing the opportunity of selling 10% of UMG shares to an American investor” ahead of its music group’s public listing later this year. Now the identify of that investor is known: a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (Spac) called Pershing Square Tontine Holdings Ltd, owned by hedge-fund billionaire William (known as Bill) Ackman.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Pershing is in talks to buy a 10% stake in UMG at a valuation of $40bn.
The company raised $4bn last year when it went public, and according to the WSJ, Ackman has been talking about seeking a deal to take a big private company public.
UMG would certainly fit the bill, although it’s unclear what this would mean for the plans to list on the Euronext exchange in Amsterdam. Ackman certainly has a way with words though. “We’re in a unicorn mating dance and we want to marry a very attractive unicorn on the other side that meets our characteristics,” he told Bloomberg last year.
Image by Naumova Ekaterina / Shutterstock.com
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