Warner Music Group are preparing for a sale. It has been reported that Warner has hired Goldman Sachs to seek out buyers.
Warner Music is home to such artists as Green Day, Faith Hill, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. According to the Times’ story, Warner’s private-equity investors want Warner to either place bet big on music by buying EMI, the smallest of the four major labels or “cash out.”
The major labels are in rapid decline and they dont seem to be adapting as well as they should be. Sony is closing manufacturing plants, EMI is in big trouble financially and now Warner are looking to exit.
Smoke without fire, storms in teacups and cries of “Wolf” abound; despite all the discussion of and online about the potential sale of Abbey Road studios to try and help ease EMI’s cash crisis (yes, we squawked [should that be tweeted?] with the rest of the giddy hens), which included such notables as Sir Paul McCartney and the National Trust, there is no truth to the rumour that they are looking to sell the iconic recording venue – in fact they rejected an offer to buy it just last year…
EMI (actually it’s parent the Gramophone Company) bought the house atNo. 3 Abbey Road in 1931, at the bargain price of £100,000 (around £20 million in today’s money) and turned it into a custom built studio complex capable of recording a full orchestra. The first of such being Sir Edward Elgar conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music. It is one of two that the company own, the other being Capitol Studios in L.A., and is most famous as the namesake of the Beatles album. Now it is being rumoured that EMI are considering the sale of the studio to help meet the financial targets imposed by the massive loan that their owners Terra Firma took out against the value of the company.
Over at MusicAlly they have pointed out that the new U2 album (No Line On The Horizon) is currently on Amazon’s US Mp3 store for only $3.99. However, because we are based in the UK there is nowhere we can get this album for so cheap, until now. Tesco has taken the step forward and is now selling the new U2 album in a week-long deal for ony £3.97.
This shows that the digital music store price wars are about to heat up! However, you will notice that iTunes never seems to get into these price wars.
Derek Sivers earned $22 million from the sale of CD Baby, according to an interview surfacing Thursday. Sivers sold the company to Disc Makers in early August of this year after breaking ground in the do-it-yourself, or DIY, artist space in the late 90s. “I knew that was about the right price,” Sivers disclosed to Venture Voice. “We actually didn’t bicker or negotiate over the price one bit, I just set a price and they said okay.”
According to Sivers, CD Baby pulled revenues of roughly $100 million at the beginning of this year, a fourfold increase over a three-year period. The company employed 85 people at that point, though Sivers rarely visited the office. “I really started letting go in 2002,” Sivers shared.
A lot of people are talking about a good winfall for Sivers, but Im really too sure what numbers they are looking at. CdBaby published a report stating their sales from January to July 07, which made up of $21m in revenues, thus by the end of the year Im sure they would have around $50m in revenues. From what I have seen of web based enterprise acquisitions lately, they are normally around 5x revenues, thus placing Cd Baby around the $250m mark. Therefore selling at $22m is just a crazy cheap price and not a winfall!
Other sites who have shared their opinions include, Paidcontent.org, TheDeal.com, Silicon Alley Insider, and Digital Music News.
