Billionaire hedge funder and board member of Universal Music Group Bill Ackman asked UMG to move its trading and legal headquarters to the United States from Amsterdam following the violent overnight attacks on Israeli soccer fans in the Dutch capital.
Mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema said Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were attacked and “fireworks” set off overnight by “anti-Semitic hit-and-run groups” after the city's soccer team AFC Ajax defeated Maccabi in a Europa League match. At least five people were taken to hospital, Reuters reports.
Ackman, one of UMG's largest shareholders, told X that moving UMG's headquarters – where the company pays taxes – and where it is publicly traded from Amsterdam to the United States would have “high material benefits” and align the company with “ethical principles.”
“Departing from a jurisdiction that fails to protect its tourists and minority populations combines both good business and ethical principles,” Ackman wrote in the post that began by writing that he is seeking board approval to transfer her listing. Pershing Square in London.
“I have also started the conversation with UMG (on whose board I sit) which is based and listed in Amsterdam, about moving its headquarters and listing to the United States, which will offer similar as well as other excellent material benefits.”
Pershing Square Holdings, in which Ackman said his family has a 23 percent stake, owns 10.25 percent of UMG. Vincent Bollore, the former chairman of Vivendi, owns 18% of UMG.
Ackman said Pershing Square will exercise its “contractual right to have UMG listed on a U.S. stock exchange … and to achieve a U.S. listing for UMG no later than sometime next year.”
“We have noted Bill Ackman's post regarding Pershing Square and UMG on X yesterday,” a UMG spokesman said in a statement provided to Bulletin board. “Neither UMG nor any of its other board members were involved in formulating the views in this post. As disclosed in UMG's listing prospectus, Pershing has the right to seek listing in the US provided that a Pershing entity sells at least $500 million in UMG shares as part of the listing. Pershing has no right to require UMG to become a US-domiciled company or to be delisted from Euronext Amsterdam. While the company will make a good faith effort to comply with its contractual obligations to undertake the US listing process at Pershing's request, any actions or decisions beyond what is necessary to comply (including any decisions to change the company's registered office) will based on an analysis that will take into account what is value maximizing and in the best interest of all the company's shareholders.”
Ackman said UMG is trading at a discount and with limited liquidity in part because its primary listing is on Amsterdam's Euronext exchange rather than the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. It is also not eligible for inclusion in the S&P 500 or other US bellwether indices
“We will fix this. Now is a good and opportune time to do so,” Ackman wrote.
Universal Music went public on Amsterdam's Euronext exchange in September 2021 with a first-day market capitalization of €45.51 billion ($53.36 billion). The company went public in the Netherlands in part because Bollore's Paris-based media group Vivendi still held a significant stake in UMG and a rule that came into effect after the United Kingdom left the European Union that required European companies to list on local stock exchanges led to a significant volume of transactions on Euronext.
Update (11/9): This story has been updated to include comments from a representative for Universal Music Group.
