The music industry’s latest multi-billion-dollar IPO was supposed to arrive last month.
Back in August reports suggested that Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) was preparing to go public in the United States in mid-October with an estimated valuation of $30bn.
In the end, the company delayed this listing “until at least November” due to the weak performance of tech stocks in the States.
Now, with a week-and-a-half left of November, another development: it looks likely that TME’s flotation in the US might be pushed back again into next year.
That’s according to a new report from Reuters, which cites two sources close to the matter, with one one of them saying that Tencent doesn’t want to “rush for the listing”.
TME is home to three of China’s leading music streaming services: QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo.
It’s majority-owned (58.1%) by the $500bn-plus-valued Chinese media/entertainment giant Tencent.
TME publicly declared its intention to float in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on October 2 and posted gross profits of $512m for H1 2018.
Don’t forget that Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment both acquired shares in TME, closing the deal on October 1 for an aggregate cash consideration of approximately $200m.
The trend of weakening tech stocks has of course hit Spotify (which owns 9.1% of TME), and which finished trading on Monday November 12 at a then-all-time low of $131.31 share price, down 4.89% on its share price at the NYSE bell on the previous Friday (November 9).
Not even Apple has been able to escape the tech market’s current volatility.
Reuters’ other source says that they will ‘continue to monitor’ the market conditions.Music Business Worldwide
