EMI sold! Citybank is the new owner

Finally, Terra Firma is out of EMI. Citygroup, the american bank that once had advised Guy Hands to acquire EMI for a monstrous amount of money, is the new owner. The bank has reduced by 65% the debt of EMI (from £3.4bn to £1.2bn) and the company now has £300m in cash available.

This has been expected for years, the question was the exact date. Years of bad leadership by people that had no idea of the music business, numerous lay-offs and striking mistakes in A&R, the cross to the digital era that never actually happened, all these combined with the hectic era that was the 00s for the music business in general, have lead to creating a very bad image for the once very significant major. Wel, now a new era has begun. But, it is expected to last only for a while, as it is more than obvious that Citygroup has no intention of managing a music major. The offers by Warner and BMG are rumored to be there and it is again, a matter of time, to see the next step for the troubled EMI. The most visible step is selling off the different parts of EMI to different byers.

A sad day for the history of EMI as a legacy, but as a music business, this should have happened half a decade ago.