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Hands wants Citigroup to share his EMI pain
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 20 November 2009
Terra Firma boss Guy Hands has confirmed that talks are ongoing with Citigroup regarding the restructuring of EMI’s debts.
As previously reported, the US bank recently rejected Terra Firma’s latest proposals for altering the debt agreements between EMI and Citigroup, mainly because it involved the bankers writing off about a billion dollars in debt.
As Terra Firma has to provide EMI with more funds whenever the struggling music major can’t meet its loan repayment commitments to Citigroup, the private equity firm is rather keen to come to some deal with the bank sooner rather than later. As it is the value of Terra Firma’s investment portfolio took another hit after the finance types were forced to further downgrade the value of its music asset earlier this week.
Speaking at an investment conference in Paris, the increasingly candid Hands, who these days makes no secret of his regrets in buying EMI, said he was still looking for his banking partners to “share the pain” of the music major, whose recorded music division continues to struggle despite radical downsizing and restructuring.
He told the conference that discussions continue with Citigroup, adding that the talks “are about how much each side shares in the pain”.
As previously reported, income from the various Beatles re-releases are helping EMI Music stay self-sufficient for the time being, and Robbie sales might help in the next quarter, though many increasingly expect Terra Firma to bail on the music major sometime next year.
