Warner Music Group revenue and Prices IPO at $25 Per Share Valuation Company at $12.75 Billion
Warner Music Group revenue and Prices IPO at $25 Per Share, Valuation Company at $12.75 Billion. Warner Music Group on Wednesday priced its much-anticipated initial public offering at $25 per share, at the higher end of the $23-$26 range and valuing the company at $12.75 billion.
Warner Music revenue and Prices IPO at $25 Per Share, Valuing Company at $12.75 Billion.Warner Music Group on Wednesday priced its much-anticipated initial public offering at $25 per share, at the higher end of the $23-$26 range and valuing the company at $12.75 billion.
Warner Music Group Corp. WMG, -7.14% priced its initial public offering on Wednesday at $25 a share, the higher end of its $23 to $26 price range, and increased the size of the deal to 77 million shares from an original 70 million shares. The company raised $1.925 billion in the deal, after asking its bankers to delay pricing on Tuesday, as the music industry took a pause from regulator activity to express solidarity with the protesters taking a stand after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota last week. The deal is the biggest IPO of the year to date.
Warner Music Group on Wednesday priced its much-awaited initial public offering at $ 25 per share, at the high end of the $ 23- $ 26 range, and valued the company at $ 12.75 billion.Its stock rose to $ 28.97 after opening 8 percent at $ 27 in early trade. As of 12:05 pm, the stock was up 15.4 percent at $ 28.48.
Warner Music is the parent of record labels including Atlantic Records, Warner Records and Elektra Records, representing artists Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Cardi B, Twenty One Pilots, Lizzo and Katy Perry. Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs are lead underwriters, with BofA Securities, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan acting as joint bookrunners. Another 23 banks are acting as co-managers. The stock will start trading on Nasdaq later Wednesday under the ticker symbol "WMG."
The music major's shares started trading on Nasdaq under ticker symbol "WMG," kicking off the biggest U.S. IPO week of the year after a quiet time due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and the recession it is expected to cause.The stock had been expected to price on Tuesday, but the company delayed that to Wednesday to support Blackout Tuesday when the music industry to show support for Black Lives Matter.
The IPO priced 77% of Class A shares, up from the 70 million originally planned. It exceeded $ 1.9 million for shareholders, exceeding the original target by $ 1.8 billion. The company will have 510 million shares outstanding after the IPO, valued at $ 12.75 million.Warner Music, owned by Len Blavatnik Access Industries, worked as a joint lead underwriter with Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs for their IPO in February.
Long-time music industry analyst Mark Mulligan at MIDiA Research in a report at the time, before the pandemic hit, argued it was a "good time" for Warner Music's IPO. "The music rights M&A market has until now been constrained by supply," he wrote. "Now, large institutional investors have another way in which they can place bets in the burgeoning recorded and music publishing businesses." The arrival of the coronavirus crisis in March led the music firm to delay the IPO.
Mulligan told THR on Tuesday: "With what is going on in the U.S. right now, there may be more impactful dislocations to the U.S. economy than COVID. But assuming that does not get to the scale where it spooks the markets, we are entering a post-COVID phase. We may have a return of infection rates, but for now we are returning to some form of socio-economic normality – a new normal for sure, but one in which business can be done. So from that perspective, there is good logic for why to IPO now."
Its publishing arm, Warner Chappell Music, has a catalog of more than 1.4 million copyrights, including from songwriters Twenty One Pilots, Lizzo and Katy Perry. It generated $643 million of revenue in the latest fiscal year, or 14 percent of total revenue. The company also owns global music distribution firm Alternative Distribution Alliance, live music app Songkick, EMP Merchandising and UPROXX.Blavatnik's Access Industries acquired the music giant in 2011 for $3.3 billion.
