Universal Music Group, the largest record company in the world, has quietly tested the idea of leaving the stock market. According to a Bloomberg News report published on Monday, October 26, and picked up by Reuters, UMG management held preliminary conversations earlier this year with several private equity heavyweights, including Apollo Global Management, TPG and Blackstone, about a deal that would take the company private.
The people cited by Bloomberg stressed that the discussions were exploratory. They did not progress, no sale process has been launched, and UMG’s board was aware the conversations had taken place. UMG declined to comment when Music Ally asked about the report, and none of the companies involved had responded to Reuters by the time its story ran.
Why now
The backdrop is a long slide in UMG’s share price. The Amsterdam-listed stock has lost roughly 29% so far in 2026 and now trades below the level at which it debuted in 2021. Music Ally puts the company’s market value at under $33 billion, against close to $60 billion at its peak in the summer of 2025, even though revenue rose 5.3% year on year in the first half of 2026. Investors have fretted over slower streaming growth in mature Western markets, competition from independent distributors offering artists more flexible terms, and the flood of AI-generated tracks reaching streaming services.
That gap between public-market pricing and the premium prices catalogs fetch in private deals is exactly what drew Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square to UMG earlier this year. Its unsolicited proposal, valued at $63.5 billion and including a plan to move the listing to the U.S., was unanimously rejected by UMG’s board.
Who would have to agree
Any real transaction would need the blessing of the Bolloré family, which controls more than 30% of UMG through Vivendi and its own holdings. Cyrille Bolloré told shareholders in May that the stock is undervalued and that the family is in no hurry to sell. Tencent, which holds about 11%, has also given no sign it wants out.
All three firms named in the report already know the music business. Apollo provided $1.25 billion to support the merger of BMG and Concord and put $700 million of capital into Sony Music Group in 2024. TPG was bought out when UMG acquired Afrobeats company Mavin Global in 2024, and Blackstone recently sold Recognition Music Group, the former Hipgnosis business, to Sony Music.
For now there is no bid on the table. But the report shows that UMG’s leadership is weighing options beyond simply waiting for its share price to recover.
Photo: Universal Music Group logo, illustration by Dado Ruvic/Reuters.
Source: Reuters (reporting on Bloomberg News); additional details from Music Ally and Investing.com.