If you’ve ever streamed a track on Spotify, there’s a solid chance Universal Music Group got a cut. UMG is home to an absurd portion of the music that defines pop culture — from legacy rock catalogs to the biggest names in electronic and hip-hop. And today, billionaire investor Bill Ackman wants to own the whole machine.

Ackman’s firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, formally submitted a non-binding proposal to UMG’s board to acquire all outstanding shares of the company in a deal that values the label at approximately $64.4 billion. That’s not a typo.

Under the proposal, UMG shareholders would receive €9.4 billion in cash — roughly €5.05 per share — plus 0.77 shares in a newly created company dubbed “New UMG” for every share they currently hold. Pershing Square pegs the total package at around €30.40 per share, a 78% premium to where UMG was trading just days ago.

“UMG’s stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business — and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.”

-Bill Ackman, CEO, Pershing Square Capital Management

The Backstory

Ackman first bought into UMG back in 2021, picking up roughly a 10% stake from Vivendi for around $4 billion right around the time the label went public. He later trimmed his position — selling a 2.7% slice for about $1.4 billion in March 2025 — and stepped down from UMG’s board in May 2025, citing other obligations. His exit from the board didn’t mean he was walking away from his thesis, though. Clearly.

So what’s actually weighing on UMG? Pershing Square points to six pressure points: uncertainty around the Bolloré Group’s 18% stake in the company, the delayed US listing, an underutilized balance sheet, the absence of a clear capital allocation plan, a lack of credit in UMG’s valuation for its €2.7 billion Spotify stake, and what the firm diplomatically called “suboptimal shareholder investor relations.” In plain terms, UMG has been misunderstood by the market, and Ackman thinks he’s the one to fix that.

The Bolloré overhang alone has spooked investors for a long time. Cyrille Bolloré stepped off UMG’s board in July 2025 amid a battle between the Bolloré Group and French regulators over its Vivendi stake, which carries a further indirect interest in UMG. That kind of geopolitical noise tends to suppress share prices regardless of what the underlying business actually does.

What This Means For Music

For the music industry — and especially for the electronic music world — this deal is significant. UMG’s roster spans virtually every genre on the planet. A successful US listing under new Ackman-era stewardship would mean more scrutiny, yes, but also more liquidity, more institutional investment, and likely more capital flowing back into the labels, their artists, and their catalogs.

Ackman praised UMG CEO Sir Lucian Grainge and the company’s leadership for building what he called a world-class artist roster. The proposal makes clear that a change in ownership structure isn’t a vote of no confidence in the team running the music side — it’s a bet that the business is better than its stock price suggests. Given that UMG shares have fallen about 33% over the past twelve months on the Amsterdam exchange, that bet isn’t a stretch.

The deal is expected to close by the end of 2026, assuming it moves past the non-binding stage. Pershing Square says all equity financing would be backstopped by the firm and its affiliates, with debt financing “committed at signing.” That’s a serious show of conviction — and a signal that Ackman is done waiting on the sidelines.

Whether UMG’s board bites remains to be seen. But with a 78% premium on the table and one of Wall Street’s sharpest dealmakers behind it, this story is far from over.