Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square to Raise $1.4 Billion From Sale of 2.7% of Universal Music Group
variety.comJem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square expects to raise $1.4 billion from the sale of a 2.7% stake in Universal Music Group, according to a report in Bloomberg.
Ackman announced the sale on social media, but the numbers are from a Bloomberg source citing knowledge of the deal, which reportedly cites “an offering of about 50 million Universal Music shares at €26.60 each.” Ackman wrote about his plans in a post on X on Thursday.
While he had some strong words about UMG, in which Pershing currently owns a 7.6% stake, delist from the Euronext in Amsterdam in the wake of terrorist attack in November (and Pershing delisted from the city in January), his comments about the company and its chairman, Lucian Grainge, are a borderline mash note.
The company has agreed to a secondary listing on the U.S. stock exchange, which requires Pershing to to sell at least $500 million in UMG shares. “We decided to sell a portion of our UMG position today,” he wrote. “UMG has substantially outperformed the rest of our portfolio (other than the GSEs) year to date in light of its extremely strong recent results.
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