{"id":974213,"date":"2019-12-31T08:39:34","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T15:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=932357"},"modified":"2019-12-31T08:39:34","modified_gmt":"2019-12-31T15:39:34","slug":"tencent-chinas-spotify-buys-a-3-billion-slice-of-universal-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/tencent-chinas-spotify-buys-a-3-billion-slice-of-universal-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Tencent, China\u2019s Spotify, Buys a $3 Billion Slice of Universal Music"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With hours to go, the music business is closing out 2019 with big news: Universal Music Group<\/a>, the biggest record company in the world, has sold a  10% stake \u2014 with a possibility of 10% more \u2014 to a consortium led by Chinese tech and entertainment giant Tencent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The $3.3 billion deal values Universal \u2014 which boasts stars like The Beatles, Kanye West and Taylor Swift in its roster \u2014 at around $34 billion. Under the terms, Tencent is allowed to increase its stake to as much as 20% by January 2021 if it wants, and Tencent will also take a minority stake in UMG\u2019s China operations.<\/p>\n

In a press release Tuesday morning, Universal\u2019s parent company Vivendi said it is \u201cvery happy\u201d with Tencent as a minority stakeholder, which will \u201cenable UMG to further develop in the Asian market.\u201d The consortium also includes other \u201ccertain global financial investors\u201d who have not been named, and Vivendi said separately that it is considering further sales of minority stakes in UMG to other parties.<\/p>\n

Wall Street has been speculating about the ramifications of a Tencent-Universal deal since last summer, when Vivendi was first rumored to have begun exploring the partial sale of UMG \u2014 the goal being to expand the record company\u2019s global reach in a time of furious growth in the streaming industry. (In 2018, global music revenue growth was higher than it\u2019d been in the two decades prior, indicating a long-awaited turnaround for the music business.) Vivendi confirmed preliminary talks<\/a> with Tencent earlier this year.<\/p>\n

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For Tencent, which already has a 7.5% stake in streaming industry leader Spotify, the deal will help bolster reach into the U.S. and other major territories it hasn\u2019t yet explored. For the recorded music industry<\/a> at large, the deal signals one of the largest U.S.-Asia partnerships yet \u2014 and the likelihood of more to come.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWith the exception of additional resources to further advance our strategy, everything else will remain the same: our strategic vision; our company, label and business unit names; our locations; and of course, our outstanding people,\u201d UMG chief Sir Lucian Grainge said in a memo to employees on Tuesday morning after the announcement of the UMG-Tencent deal. \u201cThis is an exciting development reflecting a strong validation of our business strategy, our incredible team and your excellent work. It also reflects our shared optimism about UMG\u2019s continued role as the driving force in our industry and how focused we are on the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With hours to go, the music business is closing out 2019 with big news: Universal Music Group, the biggest record company in the world, has sold a  10% stake \u2014 with a possibility of 10% more \u2014 to a consortium led by Chinese tech and entertainment giant Tencent. The $3.3 billion deal values Universal \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-974213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 07:21:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}