Investors Don't See Much In Edgar Bronfman's Music Plans

from the where's-his-army-of-lawyers? dept

Edgar Bronfman Jr., when he was head of Universal Music, was one of the first in the recording industry to absolutely freak out about file sharing, promising to send an army of lawyers against anyone involved with file sharing, and also making it clear that the world would be pure chaos if people got to listen to what they wanted when they wanted, without the guiding hand of his minions in the recording industry (because, you know, the general public is stupid and needs to be educated about what music they like). Of course, instead of freaking out about file sharing, he probably should have paid more attention to his actual business. He later sold Universal to Vivendi in a deal that is widely considered to be a huge disaster. A year and a half ago, he jumped back into the music business by buying Warner Music and announcing that online and mobile music was the future. Of course, anyone can say that -- but if you don't have any actual plan to give music listeners what they want, then it's pretty useless. It sounds like plenty of investors have seen that clearly (ah, efficient Wall Street...) and Bronfman has taken Warner Music public way below the expected range, and actually at a valuation that is less than what he paid for it. Of course, having Warner's biggest act threaten to stop recording for the label a week before the IPO, probably didn't help matters either.

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