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Utopia confirms rejig and downsizing
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 28 November 2022
The recently expansive and acquisitive Utopia Music last week confirmed a structural rejig which will also result in a downsizing of the group’s total workforce.
The business will now have two main divisions. Utopia Music Tech will be led by Roberto Neri and brings together many of the firm’s high profile acquisitions, including Sentric Music, Absolute Label Services, Proper Music and Cinram Novum. Utopia Royalty Platform will be headed up by CEO Markku Mäkeläinen and includes the company’s data operations and research unit.
The downsizing will seemingly occur in the latter division, with a memo to staff last week confirming a plan to reduce workforce costs by about 20%.
According to Music Week, Mäkeläinen wrote in the memo that: “As we have grown via acquisitions tremendously quickly, we need to realise synergies, remove overlaps to make the Royalty Platform division leaner, and improve the velocity of our value creation”.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Utopia told reporters: “Like many growth companies in today’s macroeconomic environment, Utopia is making changes to its internal structure to optimise the business. We’ve grown rapidly in two years, organically and through fifteen acquisitions. Now, we’re realising cost synergies across these acquisitions and focusing on sustainable growth”.
“These changes enable us to better serve the music industry and deliver fair pay for every play”, they went on. “Unfortunately, that means saying goodbye to some of our colleagues as part of this process. This isn’t a decision that was taken lightly and we greatly value the contribution of all our employees to Utopia’s journey so far”.
