Warner Music Group, who’s owners decided to put it up for sale in January has already received 10 bidders for parts of the company which engaged investment bank Goldman Sachs to sell it off. Unsurprisingly, most of the bidders are other record companies, although they are only planning to buy parts of the company as US anti-trust laws won’t allow rivals such as Universal to buy the whole thing and corner the market.
Potential suitors for the company include a joint venture between Sony and Michael Jackson’s Estate, billionaire music mogul Len Blavatnik, who is a former director of Warner Music and KKR & Co, a buyout firm which owns the record label BMG. Interestingly, pretty much all the potential buyers are rival record companies or companies with a background in the business.
Private equity firms and financiers have stayed wide away after the disastrous attempt to run EMI Music by financier Guy Hands, which ended up in him losing the company to financiers Citigroup.
