Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group, also known as “UMG is a subsidiary of French telecom giant Vivendi. The company has a distribution company, a publishing group, a record label with more than twenty well known subsidiary labels and owns the copyrights to more than 1 million songs.
In 2011 the Universal Music Group Corporation received 4.5 billion dollars in sales employing 7000 employees across the globe. The corporation is not a publicly traded company and has not been since it’s founding as Decca Record in 1934, solely because it is a subsidiary company of Vivendi. The Headquarters in the United States is currently in Santa Monica, California.
Universal has some of the world’s biggest mega entertainers such as Sheryl Crow, Sting, U2 and several others. They have three main people running the company, it’s chairman: Lucien Grainge, President and Chief Operating Officer: Max Hole, and Vice Chairman and CFO: Marinus N. (Nick) Henry.
In 2007 it’s parent company bought the Bertellsman Music publishing Company for a purchase of 2.4 billion U.S. dollars. It is needless to say that this corporation generates and disseminates a large part of the world’s finances as far as entertainment goes.
In 2011 after an intense bid with other Entertainment moguls UMG won the bid for EMI’s recorded music operations, a British Music Company and formerly one of Universals major competitors, which now allows for more growth for the company due to having an entirely new conglomerate of companies. With Vivendi’s stock currently standing at $17.05 per share and up 0.71%, it’s safe to say that Universal is not going anywhere as a company any time soon.
News.BBC.co.uk (BBC News). 6 September 2006.
http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/stock-price?Symbol=VIVEF
