Alana Semuels reports in the Los Angeles Times that Britain’s EMI Group has rejected a $4.1-billion takeover proposal from Warner Music Group.
Analysts said any sale was unlikely to go through until issues clouding a planned merger between Sony Music and Bertelsmann’s BMG were resolved. On Thursday, the European Commission opened an in-depth investigation of the Sony BMG deal, which was approved in 2004 before being annulled last summer.
EMI and Warner have been flirting for many years now. But the Sony-BMG deal and an EMI-Warner deal would leave the music industry with so few major players. There has been some speculation in the past that Disney could beef up its relatively small music business by acquiring one of the existing behemoths. If EMI can’t get Warner, perhaps Disney can get involved?