Thursday, January 10, 2019

Is Liberty Media about to buy into talent agency CAA? | Music Business Worldwide


Liberty Media has been a busy bee in the music industry of late.

Liberty-controlled Sirius XM’s agreed $3.5bn acquisition of Pandora is set to close by the end of March – while Liberty itself has been linked as a possible buyer of a stake in $33bn-valued Universal Music Group.

Now, another music industry institution is being linked with US-based Liberty – Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

According to a report in the Financial Times, Liberty is ‘in talks’ to acquire a stake in CAA, which represents the live careers of artists ranging from Lady Gaga to Ariana Grande, Bob Dylan, Carrie Underwood, Ed Sheeran and Kanye West (pictured). CAA also represents a host of talent in the world of sport – an industry Liberty knows well as the owner of motorsport giant Formula One.

Los Angeles-headquartered CAA’s current shareholders include private equity firm TPG – also an investor in Spotify – which owns 60% of the agency.

Minority stake-owners in CAA include Singapore-based Temasek, also an investor in SoundCloud, plus China’s CMC Capital Partners.

When TPG upped its stake in CAA in 2014 in a $225m deal, the talent agency was valued at more than $1bn.

CAA and Liberty Media declined to comment on today’s rumor.

The FT reports that Liberty is likely to be keen to acquire a “substantial stake” in CAA, although it cited sources briefed on the negotiations who said there was no guarantee of a deal being reached.

Liberty Media is run by CEO Greg Maffei and Chairman John Malone. Maffei is also Chairman of SiriusXM, Live Nation and TripAdvisor.Music Business Worldwide

[from http://bit.ly/2kVf04A]

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