Sir Lucian Grainge

Vincent Bolloré

Cyrille Bolloré

Bill Ackman

PERSHING BACK: After UMG rejected Bill Ackman’s €55.75b ($65b) acquisition offer, Ackman put his 80.6m shares (a 4.7% stake) up for sale, which will net him an estimated €1.5b. UMG has since moved quickly to buy back another 14.1m shares.

Now that he’s taking his ball (and bil) and going home, what happens next? Who will buy Ackman’s chunk of the company? Do the Bollorés or TenCent want a bigger piece? Is an institutional investor waiting in the wings?

Smart insiders said from day one that Pershing’s package was a non-starter; it simply wasn’t enough cash to move Uni’s biggest stakeholder, Vincent Bolloré, whose thumbs-down ended Ackman’s plan.

It was a nice try, the high smoke-and-mirrors content notwithstanding. Ackman was correct in seeing far greater value in the company than its stock price reflected. Too bad he tried to steal it with a lowball offer.

It’s well understood that the company has been undervalued in the public markets, and that its stock price has consistently failed to reflect House Grainge’s industry-leading performance in revenue, market share and every other metric that counts. Sir Lucian’s expert leadership, in fact, is one of the few things the warring financial parties adamantly agree upon.

As of this writing, UMG’s share price is €18.15 (approximately $20.92) with a market cap of €33.3b (about $38.4b). Along with the Pershing plan, Ackman’s drive to have UMG trade on the NYSE collapsed; it continues to be traded on Amsterdam-based Euronext.

drake

theo sedlmayr

Ed Sheeran

Max Lousada

ICEMAN AND THE GREAT THAW: All the ballyhoo about Drake becoming a free agent after dropping three albums simultaneously appears premature. Despite the bad vibes between the megastar and UMG—as exemplified by the artist’s ongoing lawsuit against the label group—those who know say there’s a new deal to be made.

Drake, who’s repped for legal by Theo Sedlmayr, is one of the top-streaming artists of all time; his catalog is set to throw off huge revenue for years to come. So how might Universal thread the needle here to not only prolong but grow the relationship? Naturally the word “reversion” comes up immediately. It’s reasonable to expect advances against that catalog, with a new arrangement that is essentially a distro deal.

It’s virtually unheard of for a major act to leave their catalog. Which is one reason biz watchers are still scratching their heads over the departure of Ed Sheeran from WMG. The only speculation has been that the label group declined to move ahead because Sheeran’s sales had been so soft—and, according to rumor, the option very large.

Sheeran may have been ice cold on the recorded-music front for the last five years, but his biggest hits still stream like gangbusters, so there’s real interest in his future. So it’s a question of who’s prepared to gamble on that future. How much are they prepared to risk? 5 million? How about 10 million? We now hear that despite a lengthy relationship with the star, Max Lousada isn’t in the mix for Sheeran’s next deal—the price is apparently just too steep for a startup.

Olivia Rodrigo

SIENNA SPIRO

Gracie Abrams

Ariana Grande

DIVA DELIVERIES: A fleet of important releases is on the way, with Geffen’s Olivia Rodrigo (June 12), Capitol’s SIENNA SPIRO (July 3), Interscope’s Gracie Abrams (July 17) and Republic’s Ariana Grande (July 31) leading the charge. Expect the aforementioned to jockey for Grammy love as the submission deadline comes into view. It’s worth noting that O-Rod’s second single from her new set is, like the first one, a streaming rocket; the same is true, at least on first blush, of Ari’s preliminary track.

BIG RED ALERT: Interscope, Republic and Atlantic have had the hot hands for the last year or so and have thus dominated the narrative. But now Columbia is surging, which will make the ongoing market-share drama considerably juicier. Much of Big Red’s heat on the streaming front comes from new and developing acts, including Ella Langley, Malcolm Todd, Dominic Fike and Irish R&B newcomer F3miii (pronounced “Femi”). Meanwhile, country star Megan Moroney and Tame Impala continue to make noise. Expect Ron Perry and team to be front and center in this year’s Grammy conversation, thanks to Harry Styles, ROSALÍA, Langley and Todd, among others.

Speaking of ROSALÍA, the Spanish marvel’s U.S. tour dates are a very hot ticket indeed; her LUX extravaganza got underway in early June and soon heads to the East Coast. Those who’ve seen the show say it’s unforgettable.

Ron Perry

Ella Langley

Malcolm Todd

ROSALÍA

NOT-SO-FREE AGENCY: The gossip has been hot and heavy surrounding the ongoing contest to acquire Team Was, which for now retains the generic moniker THE•TEAM. With offers due mere days from now, The Ankler’s survey of the field notes that top agency contender UTA would face obstacles from (a) Team Was’ ownership of management entity Brillstein and (b) possible clashes of agency cultures. Private-equity behemoth Permira, the piece adds, is highly motivated to make such an acquisition but would need an exec to front the biz (as would fellow contender New Mountain); ex-Endeavor Executive Chairman Patrick Whitesell is put forward as the likely operator. But a stealth candidate that may fit the bill, according to the trade, is Excel Sports Management, which in combination with the former Wasserman would become the 800-pound gorilla among sports agencies—and already has a partnership with Whitesell.

Which of these giants will prevail, and will the price tag come close to the $4b Casey Wasserman and cohorts are asking? Stay tuned.

OUT OF FOCUS: The movie biz was thrown for a loop this week after two micro-budgeted horror flicks, the debuting Backrooms (budget: $10m) and third-week grower Obsession (budget: $1m), smoked the Star Wars blockbuster The Mandalorian and Grogu, which was relegated to third place in its second weekend. With marketing costs factored in, the latter flick set Disney back about $300m, yet it ceded young moviegoers almost entirely to these upstarts. Backrooms notched a record-breaking $118m in global receipts.

The Gen Z audience flocked to these films made by first-timers because they’d seen their work online. 20-year-old Backrooms director Kane Parsons has been building his concept—and his following—on YouTube for years, while the 26-year-old behind Obsession, Curry Barker, made his bones with comedic short-form.

The music biz has been cultivating this market for years, and those execs who have learned how to manipulate YouTube and other key platforms with influencers are now the masters of the game. Those who haven’t are out in the cold.

BACKROOMS

GROGU

Coran Capshaw

Larry Mestel

GET YOUR FLOWERS: Two industry characters who typically stay in the background are getting big looks for good works. Red Light founder-boss Coran Capshaw will receive the lifetime Music Industry Award from the T.J. Martell Foundation on Sept. 15, while Primary Wave ruler Larry Mestel will be City of Hope’s Spirit of Life honoree on Oct. 27. Both are respected biz veterans who will be recognized as they help raise money for two very worthy causes. Expect both to write big checks to aid in the fight against dread diseases.

UP THE ACADEMY: There’s a whole lotta questionable information out there about which acts do or don’t qualify for the Grammys’ ever-controversial Best New Artist category. It’s always a subject of intense conversation as insiders ponder the eligibility of previously submitted artists and how the Academy might waive, bend or simply change its rules.

Meanwhile, will the larger membership ever forgive the Nashville chapter for screwing over gigantic acts like Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan who colored outside the lines of the cozy Music City ecosystem? Are they poised to do likewise with Ella Langley, another genre giant without a Nashville label? Will she get Country Album and Song nominations, which under other circumstances would be a foregone conclusion? Maybe yes, maybe no. Will Disney stand for the chapter’s bullshit?

Speaking of Disney and the Academy, what does Taylor Swift’s new song for Toy Story 5 presage for future collaborations among Tay, Grammy and the Mouse House?

Taylor Swift

Tate McRae

olivia dean

charli xcx

RING CYCLE: Festival season is kicking into high gear—or whatever other metaphor works for you. This weekend sees the Governors Ball in Flushing Meadows, Queens, which boasts an eclectic lineup led by A$AP Rocky, Stray Kids and Lorde. Across the drink, in Nürburg and the rockin’ old town of Nuremberg, the sold-out and extremely loud Rock am Ring and Rock im Park fests boast the likes of Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Iron Maiden, all of whom are funnier in the original German. We didn’t want to make that joke—we were just following orders.

This year’s festivals are full of female pop headliners, as exemplified by Lollapalooza, where Tate McRae, Charli xcx, Olivia Dean and the aforementioned Lorde top the bill.