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Bolloré Group’s Paris headquarters.
Looks like the Universal Music Group (UMG) takeover battle has drawn to a close: Bolloré Group has urged the major label to reject Pershing’s $64 billion bid, indicating that “the price would be a problem.”
Bolloré Group CEO Cyrille Bolloré made the seemingly definitive recommendation during his company’s annual meeting today. As many already know, Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square in early April floated a takeover offer, complete with plans to shift UMG’s main stock listing to the States, offload the major’s Spotify shares, and more.
And out of the gate, Ackman – who emphasized UMG investors’ concerns, the company’s sagging share price, and different factors when pitching the proposal – acknowledged that the transaction couldn’t proceed without Bolloré’s approval.
“This is a company with a concentrated shareholder base,” Ackman summed up. “Bolloré Group controls 28% of the business. The transaction here requires a two-thirds vote of shareholders… Without Bolloré we don’t have a transaction.”
Back to Cyrille Bolloré’s comments during the annual meeting, the exec started by rattling off a bit of the history behind Universal Music stock’s ownership and pricing shifts. From there, in many more words, he took issue with the bid’s per-share price.
“First, we think that the price is not right at all. First of all, it’s a big block, so we cannot sell it all at once. It’s probably one of the best shares, one of the best companies, that the Group has had since I’ve been around. It’s a really interesting asset; it’s great for protection during economic crises.
“So perhaps we’ll sell a few percent one day. But we can’t sell too early. … €27, €28, perhaps we could sell part of our stake, a few percent, while supporting management. But selling at €22 – the price would be a problem. We believe that it’s too low. Why would we sell our stake for that price?
“And Bill Ackman and Pershing Square are offering to bring some money, but they would also like to take on a lot of debt. … And the second problem: Control of the company. So they buy us, they get 11% [of UMG], but they also want the majority of the directors, and they want to decide on the strategy.
“If they have control, I don’t see the point for us. And Bill Ackman is a really smart investor for sure. He raised interesting points: Cash allocation, how to respond to AI, seeing opportunities rather than threats. But even if Bill Ackman is smart financially, I don’t know if he’s compatible with the management of that company.
“I don’t think that this offer is positive, I don’t think it would be positive for the company, and I encourage UMG management to reject that offer,” he spelled out in conclusion.
With these clear-cut remarks, it seems pretty safe to say that Pershing’s UMG takeover push is a no-go – at least in its current form.
The market doesn’t appear to be thrilled with the development; shares were down about 2% from opening at €19.78 (currently $23.01) apiece at the time of this writing.
On one hand, that’s up substantially from the record low of $17.93/€15.41 that UMG hit in late March. On the other hand, it’s down from the top of 2026 and, as noted by Ackman, from when Universal Music IPO’d nearly half a decade ago.
All this said, while a takeover didn’t materialize, the episode fueled several readily apparent changes on UMG’s side.
First, though a share-buyback program was technically in motion beforehand, it’s telling that the major went on to double said program’s size to $1.2 billion/€1 billion.
(As of May 22nd, the company had bought nearly 2.84 million of its shares for a total of $67.6 million/€58.1 million, according to a weekly update.)
Next, against the backdrop of earnings-transparency criticism, UMG head Lucian Grainge when discussing his company’s Q1 2026 results confirmed that “in subsequent earnings calls, we’re going to be providing greater insight into the ways we have evaluated investments in our business.”
Lastly – and perhaps most notably – Universal Music revealed plans to sell off half its Spotify stake soon after Pershing proposed divesting the entire interest. A portion of these proceeds are reportedly set to reach artists, but the payout particulars at hand remain to be seen.
