Universal Music shares jump on Amsterdam debut

Shares of Universal Music Group jumped 40% on Amsterdam’s Euronext debut, valuing the world’s largest music label at around € 45.4 billion in a deal Tuesday morning.

The IPO is a major event for the French media group Vivendi, which has decided to distribute its largest company, Universal shares, to shareholders and to monetize the renaissance of the music industry triggered by the boom in services. streaming.

It is also a great victory for Vincent Bolloré, the shareholder who controls the millionaires of Vivendi. Vincent Bolloré is still the CEO of Universal, owning around 18% of Universal after listing. Lucian Grainge, Those who expect a big payment.

Vivendi’s stake was first suspended in Paris before opening 17%. Shares of the Borole group, whose billionaires own the remaining shares of Universal, rose 3%.

Each Vivendi shareholder took a stake in Universal before being listed, so now 60% of the company is available and Vivendi itself owns 10%. American hedge fund investor Bill ackman Additionally, a Tencent-led consortium in China individually bought 30% of the group ahead of the spin-off.

Ratings are slightly lower than most Optimistic quote Issued by Wall Street prior to listing – for example, JP Morgan had a fixed value of € 54 billion.

But the music industry has been dramatic in the past five years since streaming services began spending billions of dollars on Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music, the biggest copyright holders for most songs in the world. He was resurrected.

Universal is confident that more reliable subscription revenues from streaming customers will continue to drive loyalty revenue and profit growth over the next several years, while emerging markets and new categories will also increase the music pie. ..

By separating from the universal, Vivendi became a much smaller and less profitable company, the rest of its activities being pay-TV provider Canal Plus, advertising agency Havas and book publisher Editis. Last year, Universal generated half of the Group’s 16 billion euros in turnover and more than three-quarters of its 1.6 billion euros in operating income.

However, according to analysts at Kepler, Vivendi has already obtained around 8 billion euros in cash from the sale of shares to Acman Pursing and Tencent funds, and is setting up a new path towards the acquisition. I intend to plan.

Vivendi has already shown the first big step towards reconstruction: last week it announced what it was going to do Increase this stake French publishing and distribution group Lagardère, if approved by the regulatory agency, will later pave the way for a full takeover offer.

Vivendi wants to recover Hachette, the third largest publisher in the world, Lagardère’s first company. Even though antitrust regulators are likely to demand some sales, this will give Editis a critical mass lacking.