Sony acquires EMI Music Publishing

Recently Sony Corp. has announced its acquisition of EMI Music Publishing. The $2.3 billion deal will boost the company’s entertainment content assets and will help shifting away from low-margin consumer electronics. This deal will make Sony as the world’s biggest music publisher.

According to Sony, the company made a deal with a UAE based investment company called Mubadala to purchase its 60% stake in EMI which gives Sony about 90% of the stake. The new move by Sony is one of the biggest acquisitions till date.

 “We are thrilled to bring EMI Music Publishing into the Sony family and maintain our number-one position in the music publishing industry,” said Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO, Sony Corp. “The music business had enjoyed a resurgence in the past couple of years driven by subscription-based streaming services,” he added.

Moreover, EMI is the second largest music publishing firm by revenue which either holds or owns the rights to about 2.1 million pieces of music. It also includes classics by the likes of Queen, Sam Smith, Drake and Pharrell.

The multinational conglomerate is expected to make profit from its video games and network services between 130 billion yen and 170 billion yen in the financial year ending March 2021, down from the 190 billion yen forecast for this financial year.