Photo Credit: French Tech Journal
With Warner Music Group’s purchase interest in the rearview, the EQT-led consortium that’s working to take Believe private says the process is progressing smoothly.
That consortium, dubbed Upbeat BidCo and also counting as a backer Believe founder and CEO Denis Ladegaillerie, today provided an update on its tender offer. We last checked in on this €15-per-share bid for the remaining Believe shares in late May.
At that point, the privatization-minded Upbeat BidCo had already wrapped agreements with leading stakeholders to obtain over 70 percent of the music company’s share capital. Consequently, the offer, having kicked off on the 3rd with an expected close on the 21st, is designed to seal the deal; Ladegaillerie is poised to keep on leading Believe once it exits the Euronext.
And according to the consortium’s newest update, that exit is set to arrive sooner rather than later.
All told, the buying party says it’s now in possession of 85.04% of Believe’s share capital and 73.27% of voting rights. With the free float therefore encompassing less than 15% of the capital, the EQT-powered purchasers are banking on “shares soon being removed from certain stock market indexes.”
From there, Upbeat BidCo anticipates the offer’s official results “will be published at the latest” in 11 days, on June 25th. Regarding the investor holdouts, the entity noted only that it at the time of the initial offer “did not intend to implement a mandatory squeeze-out” for unsold shares.
The coming weeks will reveal precisely what that means for those still in possession of BLV, which held steady at €15 to close out today’s trading. In any event, it was just over three years ago that the TuneCore and Sentric parent IPO’d on the Euronext Paris.
Assuming the public-market withdrawal goes off without a hitch – and evidence strongly suggests that it will – Believe is expected to retain its existing team and, having a number of recent acquisitions to its credit, continue aggressively pursuing buyouts.
Specifically, artist-services investments in today’s top-10 music markets would be in the cards, the consortium previously communicated, as would a Sentric-centered publishing buildout and expansions throughout Japan as well as the States in particular.
In related news, StubHub’s long-discussed $16.5 billion IPO is reportedly inching forward and may launch as early as next month. And royalty-free song library Epidemic Sound, having reportedly neared $140 million in net sales during 2023, is reportedly eyeing a public-market debut of its own for 2025.
