Access Industries' $3.3 billion winning bid to purchase Warner Music Group Corp (WMG.N) adds another media company to billionaire Len Blavatnik's empire and sets the stage for a possible bid for rival EMI Group. Blavatnik's all-cash deal for Warner values the world's third-largest music company at $8.25 a share plus debt. Private equity investor THL Partners, which invested in 2004, stands to double its money. The acquisition adds to Blavatnik's roster of media companies such as Russia's Admedia and the UK's Top Up TV. It also cements a long relationship between the Russian-born billionaire and Warner Music Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr and his father. Blavatnik bought Bronfman Jr's house in 2007 for $50 million, 11 times what the music chief had paid for it 12 years earlier.
Warner Music Group Corp. is a music content company. Shares of WMG traded higher by 3.54% or $0.28/share to $8.18. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $4.00 and as high as $8.15. On average, 592287 shares of WMG exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 28975652.
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