Warner Music Group Launches IPO
• Warner Music Group Corp., the home of Atlantic Records, Warner Records, Elektra Records, Parlophone Records and Warner Chappell Music announced that it has launched the initial public offering of 70,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The IPO price is expected to be between $23.00 and $26.00 per share. The offering consists entirely of secondary shares to be sold by Len Blavatnik‘s Access Industries, LLC and certain related selling stockholders. The underwriters will have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 10,500,000 shares of Class A common stock from the selling stockholders. The Company will not receive any proceeds from the offering. The Company has been approved to list its shares of Class A common stock on The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC under the ticker symbol “WMG.”
WMG initially registered for the IPO back in early February. According to TheWrap.com, after the IPO, Warner Music Group will consist of 510,000,000 total shares. The IPO’s target price places the valuation of the entire company between $11.73 billion and $13.26 billion.
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC are acting as joint bookrunning managers and as representatives of the underwriters for the offering. BofA Securities, Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are also acting as joint bookrunning managers.
