Is Universal Music Group a $50b business?

The market valuation of Universal Music Group just seems to leap up – and the timing couldn’t better for its parent company media group Vivendi, as it puts together a strategy to sell half the music company off.

In early January, Deutsche Bank estimated its worth at US$33 billion.

A few weeks later, Morgan Stanley put it at a $29 billion “base valuation” and then stretched it to $42 billion in a “bull case”.

Around that time, Goldman Sachs pegged it at $39.5 billion while Exane BNP Paribas at $28.2 billion.

Now in a new report from New York financial institution JPMorgan Cazenove, media analyst Daniel Kerven pins it at $50 billion.

He describes UMG as “a unique asset” which owns and controls “undermonetized, must-have, global content that is strategic to the tech giants and can’t be replicated”.

Last year the company generated revenues of $7.15 billion across all its divisions, with EBITA of $1.07 billion.

As reported in TMN, Vivendi is looking at choosing six banks to help it find the right buyer, or buyers.

Tipped to be future suitors are Apple, Liberty Media, Tencent, Alibaba, Verizon and Google.