Blog: Access Industries

Finishing 2019 on $6.4 billion, Universal Music is to go to IPO hot on the heels of Warner Music’s announcement to do the same. This of course also follows the Tencent-led agreement to acquire 10% of UMG for $3 billion with an option to acquire another 10%.

Throughout the last decade more than $10 billion has been invested into music catalogues. UMG bookended the merger and acquisition (M&A) boom with the Tencent-led $3 billion stake in its business, but was exceptional in that the majority of the investment was otherwise going into the independent sector (especially independent publishers).

Vivendi continues to look for a buyer for a portion of Universal Music . Though the process has been running officially since May 2018 , the transaction (or transactions) may not close until 2020. In many instances, dragging out a sale could reflect badly, suggesting that the seller is struggling to find suitable buyers.

News has emerged of Deezer being a potential buyer of troubled Soundcloud. This follows on from Spotify’s prolonged but ultimately abortive courting last year . Soundcloud was once a streaming powerhouse, with 175 million Monthly Active Users reported in October 2014.

After a quiet period in which music and media assets in general were perceived to be in irreversible decline, the narrative is suddenly changing. The boost in revenue from streaming and the allure of consistent income that comes with the transition to recurring subscription revenue seems to have provided new impetus to the investment landscape around music-focused media.

Following an 84% success rate for our 2016 Predictions report, we today launch our 2017 predictions report: ‘ MIDiA Research Predictions 2017: The Year Of The Platform’. The report is immediately available to all MIDiA subscription clients and can also be purchased for individual download from our report store here.

One of the themes my MIDiA colleague Tim Mulligan (the name’s no coincidence, he’s my brother too!) has been developing over in our online video research is that of next generation TV operators. With the traditional pay-TV model buckling under the pressure of countless streaming subscriptions services like Netflix (there are more than 50 services in the US alone) pay-TV companies have responded with countless apps of their own such as HBO Go and CBS All Access.

Access Industries’ full stack music company has, ahem, company: Liberty Media. With a combined market market cap of $37 billion, John Malone’s Liberty group of companies is by anyone’s standards a serious player.

Deezer announced yesterday that it had closed a further €100 million investment round led by existing investors Access Industries and French telco Orange. There is no doubt Deezer needs the growth capital to re-establish momentum in a market where Apple Music has almost instantly shunted it into third place.