Pershing Square sells entire Universal Music stake after board rejects takeover bid

The overnight block trade, marketed by Bank of America, pushed UMG stock to a multi-month low of €17.74 on Euronext Amsterdam. Pershing held 4.7% of the company before the sale, Yahoo Finance reported.

UMG stepped into the book directly, buying 14.16 million of the shares for about €250 million ($290 million) through an allocation outside its €500 million public buyback programme, Yahoo Finance reported. It plans to cancel the stock or hold it to satisfy employee share awards.

The exit still left Pershing with a profit of about $600 million on a position of more than $1.5 billion. The fund first bought roughly 10% of UMG from Vivendi in 2021 for about $4 billion, then sold down for more than a year: it distributed 47 million shares to co-investors in January 2025 and sold about 50 million more that March for roughly $1.4 billion. Ackman left UMG's board in May 2025 after the stake fell below 5%.

The bid UMG's board rejected

Pershing's offer on 7 April 2026 valued UMG at €30.40 a share, a 78% premium to the 2 April close. It comprised €9.4 billion in cash and 0.77 shares in a new company for each UMG share, and would have merged the label with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings and moved its primary listing from Amsterdam to the New York Stock Exchange.

The board rejected the proposal unanimously on 29 May, saying it "fundamentally and materially undervalues UMG and will not deliver superior value creation". Cyrille Bolloré, chief executive of the Bolloré Group, had urged rejection the day before, telling the group's shareholders "the price is not there at all". The Bolloré Group controls 28% of UMG through a direct stake and its holding in Vivendi. UMG shares closed at €19.50 that Friday, down 11% this year and 30% over the past 12 months.

UMG's standalone case

UMG answered the bid with its own numbers: revenue up 60% and adjusted EBITDA up nearly 70% since the 2021 listing, a 33% share of recorded music in 2025, its highest in 12 years, and a 24% share of music publishing. It also raised its buyback authorisation to €1 billion, with a new €500 million programme to start once an existing €500 million buyback completes, and said it would monetise half its Spotify stake and give investors more financial disclosure.