Warner Music Group has confirmed that it’s set to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange this morning in New York, floating 77 million shares of Class A common stock.
Those 77m shares will be available at an initial public offering price of $25.00 per share, which could raise approximately $1.925 billion for WMG owner Access Industries and certain related selling stockholders.
Warner will not receive any proceeds from the offering. The size of the IPO was increased from the previously announced 70m shares of Class A common stock due to strong demand.
Judging by information contained within Warner’s most recent S1/A filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, that $25.00 per share opening price will give Warner a valuation of $12.774bn (not factoring in debt).
WMG and Len Blavatnik announced a $100m fund for anti-racist and music industry causes earlier today (June 3).
The shares of Class A common stock will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “WMG”.
Underwriters will have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 11.55 million shares of Class A common stock from the selling stockholders.
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC are acting as joint bookrunning managers and as representatives of the underwriters for the offering.
BofA Securities, Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are also acting as joint bookrunning managers.
Barclays Capital Inc., Evercore Group L.L.C., Guggenheim Securities, LLC, Macquarie Capital (USA) Inc., Nomura Securities International, Inc., RBC Capital Markets, LLC, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., CIBC World Markets Corp., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc., SG Americas Securities, LLC; Société Générale, LionTree Advisors LLC, Raine Securities LLC, AmeriVet Securities, Inc. Bancroft Capital, LLC, Blaylock Van, LLC, C.L. King & Associates, Inc., Loop Capital Markets LLC, Roberts & Ryan Investments, Inc., Samuel A. Ramirez & Company, Inc., Siebert Williams Shank & Co., L.L.C., Telsey Advisory Group LLC and Tigress Financial Partners, LLC are acting as co-managers for the offering.
Warner Music Group chose not to go public on the Nasdaq yesterday (June 2), instead observing the music industry-wide ‘Black Out Tuesday’ initiative, launched in solidarity with those protesting racial injustice in the United States.
Over the weekend, Warner labels such as Atlantic Records and Warner Records announced that WMG would be making contributions to Black Lives Matter and other organizations “doing crucial work to combat racial injustice”.Music Business Worldwide
