CITIGROUP HAS fired the starting gun on the auction of EMI, the music business it seized from Guy Hands’ Terra Firma group in February, setting up a probable sale of the company behind the Beatles and the James Bond theme tune.
The US bank is moving faster than many potential bidders predicted, hoping to take advantage of a stabilising US music market and strong interest from bidders in this spring’s auction of Warner Music, which Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries won in May with a $3.3 billion (€ 2.3bn) offer.
Other participants in the Warner auction that are expected to look at EMI include BMG Music Publishing, backed by KKR and Bertelsmann, Sony’s recorded music and publishing ventures, and Vivendi’s Universal Music.
However, people who have talked to Citigroup in recent weeks said the bank is sensitive to accusations of breaking up the home of The Beatles, and that EMI has attracted preliminary interest from potential British buyers.
That and the prospect that a bid involving any of EMI’s three largest competitors could be tied up by European regulators for six to nine months has led many to believe that Citigroup may favour alternative bidders. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011
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