Terra Firma buys EMI

There have been a lot of rumors and opinions lately about a company that includes people like Robbie Williams and the Beatles on its list of artists. The music company, which has struggled for survival over the past year, has suffered losses in recent months, bringing losses of more than $ 500 million since last summer. In 2000, the company refused to allow its competitor Warner Music to buy itself.
Earlier this year, EMI began a global restructuring, which resulted in a strong downsizing in both Europe and the USA.

The news of the sale of the company raised its assets by 9%. Analysts believe that this step was most likely made in order to attract more customers, such as Warner Music, for example.

The deal estimates EMI's holdings in the amount of 4.7 billion US dollars, and including debts - 6.3 billion. The company reported that it received a number of offers, but Terra Firma's offer was the most attractive.
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“The Terra Firma offer is offering money now, at no cost and with minimal operational risk for the company,” says EMI Chairman John Gildersleeve.

Guy Hands, president of Terra Firma and one of the most influential financiers of the United Kingdom, said that this deal will allow EMI to fully take advantage of the opportunity to rise as a leading global music company and accelerate the creation of a strategy for the digital music and Internet industries. Terra Firma also announced that the working staff, as well as other internal affairs, will be decided in the course of the transaction.

Also, this deal looks more like an attempt to acquire a company not for further development, but as an EMI rescue. Perhaps in the future Terra Firma will sell EMI to its competitor Warner Music. In any case, the position of EMI to digital music material is already known and will continue to evolve. The current rates of downloading music from the Internet are far from ideal, but this is most likely due to a weak ecosystem. In the future, it is planned to increase interest in this type of music production, especially given the fact that materials are now sold without DRM protection. EMI transactions in terms of selling DRM-free music materials include companies like Apple and Microsoft.

Analyst Laura Martin of Soleil Media Metrics believes that this news is only the beginning, and perhaps in the future the buyer will be Warner Music.

based on BBC and Mashable