Believe's share price jumped 19.2% to 14.78 euros ($15.93) this week following Monday's news that a consortium including founder/CEO Denis Ladegaillerie plans to take the company private at €15.00 per share. The small difference between the offer price and Friday's closing price suggests investors believe Ladegaillerie, along with investment funds EQT and TCV, are likely to complete the deal.
“Believe has a significant opportunity ahead to consolidate the independent music market and create the world's first major independent,” Ladegaillerie said in a statement. But the consortium, which has 71.9% of the outstanding shares, has a good distance to go. After the group acquires a 75% stake through already agreed transactions with certain shareholders, it will obtain regulatory approvals and the opinion of an independent expert before auctioning the remaining shares.
The Billboard Global Music Index rose 1.4 percent to a record 1,659.96, as 13 of the index's 20 stocks ended the week in positive territory. This brought the index's annual gain to 8.2%. Over the past 52 weeks, the index has risen 29.4%.
Thanks to Believe's double-digit gain and improvements from some major labels like Live Nation, CTS Eventim and Spotify, the Billboard Global Music Index outperformed many other indices around the world. In the US, the Nasdaq composite and the S&P 500 fell 1.3% and 0.4%, respectively. South Korea's KOSPI composite rose 1.1 percent to 2,648.76. In the UK, the FTSE 100 gained 1.8% to 7,711.71 points.
US stocks had a sluggish week, rocked by news on Tuesday (13 February) that US prices rose 0.3% in January. That led investors to abandon stocks on fears that higher-than-expected inflation figures would force the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates high to cool the economy. Then on Thursday (February 15), numbers from the US Census Bureau showed that retail sales fell 0.8% in January, worse than the expected 0.3% drop and well below the 0.4% gain of December.
Spotify gained another 2.2% to $246.18, bringing its year-to-date gain to 31.0%. Shares of Live Nation improved 4.2% to $93.27 ahead of the company's fourth-quarter earnings report on Feb. 22. Reservoir Media rose 8.6% to $6.96 in the week after the company raised its guidance for full-year results and reported revenue growth of 19% last quarter.
K-pop stocks have had a terrible start to 2024, although there has been some improvement this week. SM Entertainment gained 9.7% to 80,100 won ($60.11), improving its year-to-date decline to 13%. HYBE, which fell 10.7 percent year-on-year, gained 4.3 percent to 208,500 won ($156.46). YG Entertainment rose 3.1% to 43,500 won ($32.64), but is down 14.5% in 2024. And JYP Entertainment managed a modest gain of 0.7%, bringing its year-to-date deficit to 24.4%.
