{"id":236782,"date":"2025-07-22T11:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T10:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=236782"},"modified":"2025-07-22T12:36:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T11:36:19","slug":"universal-music-group-takes-step-closer-to-us-listing-filing-draft-registration-with-sec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/universal-music-group-takes-step-closer-to-us-listing-filing-draft-registration-with-sec\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Music Group takes step closer to US listing, filing draft registration with SEC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Universal Music Group has filed a draft registration statement for a proposed secondary listing in the US.<\/p>\n

The world’s largest music rights company confirmed<\/a> in a press release on Monday evening (July 21) that it has “confidentially” submitted a Form F-1 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, “relating to a proposed public offering in the United States of the company\u2019s ordinary shares held by certain shareholders”.<\/p>\n

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Monday’s press release did not disclose the timing, pricing, or venue of UMG\u2019s proposed US listing.<\/p>\n

The company wrote: \u201cUMG will not receive any proceeds from the sale of ordinary shares by the selling shareholders. The number of ordinary shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cUMG will not receive any proceeds from the sale of ordinary shares by the selling shareholders. The number of ordinary shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Universal Music Group<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UMG noted that the proposed offering remains subject to the completion of the SEC review process, as well as market and other conditions.<\/p>\n

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UMG has been trading<\/a> in the Netherlands under the ticker UMG since September 2021, after spinning off<\/a> from French media conglomerate Vivendi.<\/p>\n

The company’s shares on the Euronext Amsterdam were priced at EUR \u20ac26.95 at market close on Monday (July 21) and were trading at around \u20ac27.28 at 9:30am CEST this morning (July 22) with a market cap value of \u20ac50.05 billion<\/strong> (USD $58.5bn).<\/p>\n

As the name suggests, any future ‘secondary listing’ on a US stock exchange<\/strong> would come in addition to UMG’s presence on the Euronext Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

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UMG\u2019s latest announcement comes after the company revealed in January<\/a> that Pershing<\/strong> Square<\/strong> Holdings<\/strong>, led by billionaire investor Bill<\/strong> Ackman<\/strong>, had requested a secondary listing<\/b> of the music company on a US stock exchange.<\/p>\n

The deal required Pershing to sell at least $500 million<\/strong> worth of its UMG holdings as part of the listing process, according to an earlier announcement.<\/p>\n

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Also in January, Pershing Square Capital Management distributed<\/a>\u00a047 million\u00a0<\/b>shares, representing\u00a02.6%<\/b> of UMG, to the fund\u2019s co-investors.<\/p>\n

Following that distribution, Pershing Square retained\u00a0140 million\u00a0<\/b>shares, equivalent to a\u00a07.6%\u00a0<\/b>stake in Universal.<\/p>\n

Then, in March, shareholders affiliated with Pershing Square sold<\/a> a further<\/em>\u00a02.7% stake<\/strong> in Universal Music Group, for proceeds of around USD $1.4 billion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Bill Ackman stood down<\/a> from Universal’s board in May.<\/p>\n

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Universal Music Group generated revenues<\/a> of EUR \u20ac2.901 billion (USD $3.052bn)<\/strong> in calendar Q1 across all of its divisions (including recorded music, publishing and more).<\/p>\n

That Q1 revenue figure was up 9.5% YoY<\/strong> <\/span>at constant currency, driven, according to UMG, by solid growth in Recorded Music and Music Publishing.<\/p>\n

The company’s subscription streaming revenues grew\u00a09.3%<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>YoY<\/span><\/strong> at constant currency to reach <\/span>\u20ac1.252 billion<\/strong>\u00a0($1.317bn)<\/strong> in Q1.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dutch music company said it will not receive any proceeds from the planned US IPO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":236792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[122,269],"class_list":["post-236782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-universal-music","tag-universal-music-group"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}