- A consortium led by Tencent agreed to buy up to 20% of Vivendi’s Universal Music in a deal that values the world’s largest music label at $34 billion.
- The agreement will allow both companies to expand in a recovering global music market.
- Tencent is getting more access to U.S. artists while Universal can tap into the Asian market, which features big-selling “K-Pop” Korean pop stars.
Rising tempo
The IFPI federation said in April that global recorded music revenues had risen 9.7% in 2019 from last year, while Universal was Vivendi’s main third-quarter sales growth driver, with revenues rising nearly 16% to 1.8 billion euros.
“Universal has been enjoying increased revenues for the last 5 years. With the company in a strong position, it can make sense to capitalize on the valuation with a minority sale at this point in the growth cycle,” said MB Capital director Marcus Bullus, commenting on the deal.