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Warner board considering final bids
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 5 May 2011
So, if the rumours are to be believed, and why not, let’s believe them, the board of the Warner Music Group are considering three maybe four final bids to buy their company, with the intent to make a decision of which takeover to back by the end of the week. So that’s tomorrow.
As much previously reported, Warner put itself up for sale at the start of the year. Initially the company was accepting offers for either some or all of the music major, but in the end decided to only consider those bids to buy the whole company outright. It is widely thought that the two lead contenders are similar bids in the region of three billion dollars from Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries and the Gores brothers.
According to Reuters, a consortium involving Sony Music is also on the final shortlist (it’s not clear whether that’s one offer, or possibly two offers, one involving Sony’s record company, the other Sony’s music publishing company). Though there will be concerns that any deal that majorly increases the size of Sony Music might interest competition regulators, delaying any actual sale going through.
Sources have told Reuters that Warner directors hope to tell the final bidders their decision by end of play Friday. Assuming they do, and there are no complications as the takeover deal goes through the motions, most attention will then switch to the upcoming sale of EMI.
You might think that if Len Blavatnik gets Warner that leaves EMI for the Gores, though some reckon whoever is victorious in the Warner deal might then try to swoop and buy EMI as well. While there will be biggish regulatory hurdles to get over to merge the Warner and EMI businesses, the costs saving would be significant, and some in both record industry and City circles reckon a combined EMI Warner is an inevitability that has just been a very long time coming.
