NMC, which has over USD $45 billion in assets under management, confirmed on Tuesday (November 21) that it will “lead a shareholder group” to acquire a majority stake in BMI.
The most surprising part of BMI’s official announcement today? NMC’s ‘shareholder group’ includes an arm of Google parent Alphabet.
As part of New Mountain’s investment, a BMI press release confirms, CapitalG – aka Google/Alphabet’s “independent growth fund” – will acquire a passive minority stake in the PRO.
CapitalG has previously invested over $4 billion into 55 companies, including the likes of Airbnb, Stripe and Lyft.Another important piece of today’s announcement: BMI’s current shareholders will allocate $100 million of the proceeds of the proposed sale to songwriter, composer and publisher affiliates “in recognition of [their] creativity” shortly after the transaction closes.
BMI says that the allocation of this $100 million “will be in keeping with [BMI’s] distribution methodologies, which are based on performance levels over a set period of time”.
BMI adds in today’s announcement that it “will work to finalize an equitable payout plan for this allocation in the coming months”.
(BMI didn’t put a specific price on NMC’s takeover in its confirmation today. Sources have previously put the acquisition price in NMC’s offer at around $1.7 billion.)
The NMC transaction is subject to approval by BMI shareholders and customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of Q1 2024.