As the dust settles from its rejection of an acquisition offer by hedge-fund Pershing Square, Universal Music Group has taken its next financial step forward.
It has priced €1bn of new ‘Eurobond Notes’ that will be sold to investors outside the US to raise money for “general corporate purposes, including the refinancing of existing indebtedness and paying transaction fees and expenses”.
This follows reports earlier this week that UMG was considering such a move, against a backdrop of a €1bn bridge loan taken out earlier this year, which was due to be repaid in July.
In other UMG news, its boss Sir Lucian Grainge has delivered his latest comments on AI and music, during a ceremony to accept Northeastern University’s ‘Global Entrepreneur’ award.
“I think AI is a brilliant stress tester for people’s imagination and people’s creativity. If you’re a writer and you just can’t finish a song – you can’t get that middle eight, you can’t get the chorus, the lyrics don’t work – I think that technology can help you accelerate being the best of yourself on your best day,” said Grainge, in comments shared by UMG.
“I think that responsible AI, using the technology for artistic brilliance, in the same way that sampling, when that came in, made an enormous difference to the creative process. You wouldn’t have acts like Soft Cell or Human League or Depeche Mode without that sampling technology, for instance.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com ’
