By Aimee Look

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital said it had made an offer to buy Universal Music Group, valuing the record label behind Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga at more than $63.48 billion.

The deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year, would involve Universal merging with Pershing Square Sparc Holdings, an SEC-registered acquisition company. The newly-created company would be based in Nevada and would shift its stock listing from Amsterdam to the New York Stock Exchange, Pershing said.

"UMG's stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction," Pershing's CEO Bill Ackman said in a statement Tuesday.

The total deal is valued at around 30.40 euros a share, equivalent to $35.09, split between cash and stock, with a total valuation of around 55 billion euros.

Universal didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ackman, who until May last year sat on the Universal board, had been pushing the company to list in the U.S. Last year, Universal said it planned to launch a U.S. offering of some Pershing-owned shares.

Universal has its operational headquarters in Santa Monica and its corporate headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands. The label started trading on the Euronext Amsterdam in September 2021 after a spinoff from Vivendi, the conglomerate steered by the family of French billionaire Vincent Bolloré.

The deal would involve Universal merging with Pershing Square Sparc Holdings. The new entity would become a Nevada corporation and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Pershing Square said.

Write to Aimee Look at aimee.look@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 07, 2026 03:27 ET (07:27 GMT)

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