BOSTON (Reuters) -Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said on Tuesday he could envision a stock listing for Universal Music Group in the United States after it lists in Amsterdam in September if the company’s board agrees to take that step.
Ackman said on a conference call with investors that he saw no legal or regulatory restrictions that would prevent a dual listing for the world’s largest music group, and that this could happen either through a direct listing on the NYSE or Nasdaq or through sponsored American Depositary Receipts.
“It is up to the board,” he said.
Ackman’s Pershing Square Tontine Holdings is making a 10% investment in UMG, which represents the Beatles, Taylor Swift and even Ackman’s songwriting grandfather, after shareholders on Monday approved plans to spin it off from conglomerate Vivendi SE.
UMG will be listed on Euronext in Amsterdam in late September.
Ackman called UMG an “incredibly iconic, super durable business” that represents the world’s best musical artists, has the “best management” and “tremendous scale.”
UMG and Ackman’s special-purpose acquisition company on Sunday said they had finalized a deal that would give Ackman’s vehicle a 10% stake.
On Wednesday, Ackman and his analysts laid out the rationale for the deal in an hours-long presentation detailing how the music industry is not only recession proof but is now one of the cheapest forms of entertainment in the world, thanks to smartphones and streaming technology.
Ackman said “the entire world” is UMG’s market at a time “everyone wants to become a rock star” and no company facilitates that better than UMG.
Indeed, UMG owns the rights to a recording that Ackman’s grandfather, Herman Ackman, sold nearly 100 years ago, he said on the call.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Anirban SenEditing by Bernadette Baum)
