Warner Music Group is Going Public

Warner Music Group plans to sell shares in the U.S. In 2011, billionaire Sir Len Blavatnik acquired the company for $3.3 billion. At that time, the industry was struggling to deal with problems.

Nevertheless, thanks to streaming services such as Spotify and Apple, the industry started to make money again in recent years.

As a result, the value of music companies increased, and this factor played an important role as more investors decided to invest in the record industry.

On February 6, Warner Music Group filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Warner Music plans to go public for the second time.

Interestingly, the famous music company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. However, it became a private entity in 2011 when Blavatnik and his Access Industries bought the company.

Warner Music and its plans

As mentioned above, Warner Music filed a statement for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) of its common stock. Based on the information, the company will sell the shares of common stock that belongs to certain stockholders of Warner Music Group.

However, the number of shares of common stock which the company plans to offer as well as the price range for the proposed offering remains unknown.

It is worth mentioning that Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC works together as they act as joint book-running managers for the offering.

The value of the Warner Music Company is estimated at around $6 billion.

In 2019, the value of Universal Music Group, which is the largest music company in the world, surpassed $33 billion. Media Group Vivendi sold a minority share of the Universal Music Group to a group led by China’s Tencent.

Moreover, Warner Music is profitable as in 2019; net income was $256 million. This is an important factor as other recent high-profile stock market listings experienced problems when it came to profitability.