Warner Music Group is set to launch its Initial Public Offering (IPO), aiming to rake in highs of $1.8 billion from the sale of 70 million Class A shares.
Seen as a rarity in IPOs, the offering is made up entirely of existing shareholders selling stock, with the company not selling any shares in the listing.
The offering has a target price of between $23 and $26 per share. On the low end of its range, the IPO would value the bundle of shares at $1.61 billion, with the high end equating to $1.82 billion.
Furthermore, the IPO comes with a 30-day option for underwriters (including Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs) to purchase up to an additional 10.5 million shares of the company’s Class A common stock.
The IPO’s target price thus places the valuation of the entire company between $11.73 billion and $13.26 billion.
The shares will trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under ticker symbol WMG as from 3rd June 2020.
Reuters reports that the company posted a net loss of $74 million in the second quarter ended on 31st March 2020, compared with a profit of $67 million a year earlier. The company’s debt totals $2.98 billion.
Warner Music Group is an American multinational entertainment, and record label conglomerate, with its headquarters in Los Angeles. It is one of the “big three” recording companies and the third-largest in the global music industry, after Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME).
The company employs more than 3,500 people and has operations in more than 50 countries throughout the world.
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