9 February 2021
Davis Polk is advising a Tencent-led consortium on its acquisition of additional equity interest in Universal Music Group (“UMG”). The Tencent-led consortium has exercised its call option to acquire an additional 10% equity stake in UMG from Vivendi SE (“Vivendi”) based on the same enterprise value of EUR30 billion for 100% of UMG’s share capital as in the initial acquisition that closed in March 2020. Such consortium includes
Tencent Holdings Limited (“Tencent”), Tencent Music Entertainment Group (“Tencent Music”) and certain global financial investors. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2021, subject to regulatory approvals. Upon closing of the transaction, the Tencent-led consortium’s equity ownership in UMG will increase to 20%.
Tencent is a leading integrated Internet company providing value-added Internet services, including communications and social, entertainment, content, online advertising, FinTech and cloud services. Tencent Music is the leading online music entertainment platform in China, operating the country's highly popular and innovative music apps: QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music and WeSing. UMG is the world’s leading music company, owning and operating a broad array of businesses engaged in recorded music, music publishing, merchandising and audiovisual content in more than 60 countries. Vivendi is an integrated content, media and communications group, operating businesses throughout the media value chain, from talent discovery to the creation, production and distribution of content.
The Davis Polk corporate team includes partners Miranda So and Jacques Naquet-Radiguet, counsel Yunpeng Fan, associate Jie Zhang and registered foreign lawyer Shifeng Ni. Partner Nick Benham, counsel Aaron Ferner and associate Claudia Herron are providing finance advice. Members of the Davis Polk team are based in the Beijing, Hong Kong and London offices.
