(Bloomberg) — Len Blavatnik bought Warner Music Group Corp. for $3.3 billion in 2011, as the global music industry was grappling with plummeting record sales and a transition to digital listening dominated by piracy.He took the company public Wednesday with the stock pricing at $25, valuing Warner Music at $12.8 billion. The shares opened at $27 at 11:52 a.m. in New York and advanced to $28.50 by noon.Entities controlled by Blavatnik, 62, sold about 77 million shares and Warner Music won’t receive any of the proceeds, according to a regulatory filing. He will retain almost all of the voting power. A spokeswoman for Blavatnik declined to comment.Warner Music Shareholders Raise $1.9 Billion in Upsized IPOThe pricing was delayed to avoid clashing with Black Tuesday, when the music industry halted business to support protests against police brutality in the U.S, people familiar with the matter said.Its public debut, at almost four times more than what Blavatnik paid for it, underscores the music industry’s resurgence. Warner, whose vast roster of artists includes Lizzo, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars and Cardi B, now gets more than 60% of its recorded music revenue from digital sales, helping to insulate it from pandemic-induced lockdowns. Shares of streaming giant Spotify Technology SA have surged 27% this year.Warner Music IPO Aims to Strike Chord in ‘Six Feet Apart’ EraThe IPO boosted Blavatnik’s net worth by $6.6 billion to $30.3 billion, based on the listing price, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Ukraine-born American was No. 41 on the ranking of the world’s 500 richest people through Tuesday.He began to amass his fortune with the purchase of oilfields and factories after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the deal for Warner Music was his boldest gambit en route to becoming one of the world’s richest people.Blavatnik’s Contrarian Wagers Forge $26 Billion Global FortuneGlobal recorded music sales were $15 billion when he made the deal, with just a tiny fraction of that coming from streaming. By 2019, total sales had jumped to $20.2 billion, and the share from streaming had soared more than 900%.(Updates with share price in second paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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Click here to read the full article. Snap, the parent company of social app Snapchat, said that Donald Trump's account is no longer being promoted on its Discover media platform. The company cited Trump's comments regarding "racial violence and injustice" for the decision.Trump's Snapchat account remains public, available to any users who subscribe to it or search for it. But Snap has stopped featuring the president's on Discover as it has previously.“We are not currently promoting the President’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform," a Snap spokeswoman said. "We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover. Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and we stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality, and justice in America."Snap execs made the decision to pull the president's account from the Discover page over the weekend. The news was first reported by the New York Times.That was in response to Trump's messages posted on Twitter and Facebook saying that if protesters in Washington, D.C., had gotten too close to the White House, “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” would have been used against them.Trump also last Friday, in posts on social media platforms, suggested Minneapolis rioters would be shot at. Twitter added a warning label to the tweet, saying it violated the policy against glorifying violence, while Facebook left it up — a decision that has caused a backlash among Facebook employees against CEO Mark Zuckerberg.In that comment, Trump called people protesting the death of George Floyd protesters “THUGS" and said, "Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” (The "looting and shooting" comment did not appear on Trump's Snapchat account.)The phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” has a racist legacy: It was used in the late 1960s by Miami’s police chief in speaking about violently suppressing civil unrest in black neighborhoods and by segregationist George Wallace. Trump later claimed he was ignorant of the phrase’s racist implications.It's unknown how many Snapchat users follow Trump's account on the app. Unlike other social platforms, Snapchat doesn't publish number of followers.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday barred Chinese passenger carriers from flying to the United States starting on June 16 as it pressures Beijing to let U.S. air carriers resume flights amid simmering tensions between the world’s two largest economies. The move, announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation, penalizes China for failing to comply with an existing agreement on flights between the two countries. The order applies to Air China, China Eastern Airlines Corp, China Southern Airlines Co and Hainan Airlines Holding Co, as well as smaller Sichuan Airlines Co and Xiamen Airlines Co.