Is EMI going to be sold to Terra Firma?

In April EMI shareholders started to have a load of news on a possible change of hands.

EMI is one of the big four record companies, with more or less 10% of the music market share. In April we started to hear about Warner wanting to buy EMI (again), in May we heard that several Private Equity firms also wanted EMI. Warner extended the offer, but Terra Firma also made an offer, and EMI accepted it - meaning that they started by then to convince its shareholders to accept the deal. Terra Nova needs 90% of the shareholders wanting to do the deal. Warner kept wanting to buy EMI, and shareholders were not really interested in Terra Nova's offer without knowing what alternatives they have... So Terra Firma raised their offer for EMI, and set'd up June 27 as the aquisition deadline. Warner said they were going to make a final offer, and EMI shareholders didn't show any interest on Terra Firma's offer. The limit date was postponed, but when Warner gave up the ride, then shareholders faced an easier decision: Terra Firma or nothing. Until friday Terra Firma had 84.94% from the 90% they need to, and a final extention was set to 1.00 pm on Wednesday. Everything would lead to the conclusion that Terra Firma is going to get the deal, but there are reports that financing for the deal could fall through due to the recent turmoil on global debt markets.

Let's see what's going to happen: wednesday is definively the final day for us to know if EMI is going to be sold to Terra Firma or not. Unfortunately I think that if they are sold those are bad news, but if they're not we have even worse news. One way or another, after the deal we'll have interesting time for the big four in the next few months.

Links for the weekend

• Warner will make final offer to buy EMI in one week;
• Expectnation - an awsome web service to organize events/conferences;
• After my rant on the horrible article from the US Ambassador in Portugal, I understand. There's this draft of an agreement between Korea and USA that basicly ends with freedom in the name of Intelectual Property;
• In Germany you can't use any "hacker" tool. I wonder if they have a clue on the legit uses that tools like nmap can have...
• letsproveVO is yet another BaseCamp alternative;
• Plazes has a new version!
• Reboot started. Damn, I wish I was there...
• Tomorrow I'll attend to this concert. Three bands, one DJ, the offer of a 3CD compilation with one Merankorii track in it... all for 4€!

Warner aims to buy EMI, alone

According to The Guardian, Warner is now wanting to buy EMI, alone. This comes after they had some talks with private equity firms, and Lucky Jim's claims of wanting EMI too.

I have already speculated about this aquisition here.

Warner might raise offer for EMI

After Terra Nova doing an offer to EMI that was accepted, EU regulator frees Warner Music to raise offer for EMI, which I find odd. Anyway, the stock market is already waiting for a new bid from Warner, so I guess we'll have more news on this issue preety soon.

So, what do I find of this? Well, while some think that Terra Firma's guidance is going to be worse than nowadays EMI, at least I think that nothing worse than being bought by Warner could happen. What would be trully great was if somebody else took them. Since that seems improbable, let's just hope that Warner stays quiet.

The Warner and EMI dance

I've reported here before that Warner is again wanting to buy EMI, after EMI's decision to sell DRM-free tracks on iTunes. After that, I told you that after all EMI could be bought and not by Warner, but by a set of private equity firms interested in the deal. EMI gave them until May 23 to present their offers, and as the date is getting closer, the tension grows... The big news today is that Warner may offer extra $240m for EMI thanks to the confidence that the European competition regulators.

Of course I hope that this merge does not happen, but worse than that is that, all of the sudden, it seems that everything points out for an European aprooval of this merge, where previously everything pointed to the other side. I have no clue on what changed, and, unless someone got his bank account more joyful to change his oppinion, I just don't get why could a Warner/EMI merge be considered as possibly not fall into anti-trust. Let me just remind you that Warner recognized that the new impulse to buy EMI came out of their latest decisions (like selling DRM-free music) that are taking the music industry to a path that they don't like. Isn't buying some company to change the complete industry to a deliberate path exactly what anti-trust measures try to prevent?

EMI might be bought... and not by Warner

After EMI start selling DRM-free tracks on iTunes, Warner decided they wanted to buy EMI (again), claiming that they would do it to stop them from selling DRM-free music. There was a $4.1 billion rejected takeover bid, so they decided to approach shareholders instead.

News now tell us that there are three diferent US private equity firms wanting to buy EMI, which replied giving them until May 23 to present their plans. The offer is in the order of $5.9 billion, but the motives behind the interest are indisclosured yet... Let's see if this is good news or not.

Quickies

We7 is a music sharing website where you can get DRM-free music for free and artists still get payed. The trick? A small add in the beginning of each mp3 file.

See what you can do to try to convince Warner Music to drop DRM.

Article about Security Concerns in Web 2.0.

Warner wants to buy EMI

After EMI last month rejected a $4.1 billion takeover bid from Warner Music Group (WMG), WMG may now pursue a merger with EMI by appealing directly to its shareholders, a move that would undermine EMI's management.

Taken from here.