A private equity firm called Crosby Capital Partners (one of my favourite private equity firms) are reportedly considering making a counter offer for London based cross-sector music company Sanctuary following the announcement last week that the firm's board was backing a 20 pence per share takeover offer from the Universal Music Group. Which might mean we have a major record company trying to gazump a private equity record label takeover (Warner staging a counter-bid to Terra Firma's offer on EMI), and a private equity firm trying to gazump a major record company record label takeover (Crosby Capital staging a counter-bid to Universal's offer for Sanctuary). Which is great news - hostile takeovers are so much more fun. Except for everyone involved in them, but they're more fun for us.
Anyway, back to Crosby. Sanctuary's board are known to have entered into takeover talks with a number of parties in recent months, including private equity outfits and major record companies. Crosby recently bought over a million shares in the struggling music firm through its subsidiary Silk Route Investments. That may have been simply to capitalise on the rapid increase in Sanctuary's share price that has occurred since Universal went public with its takeover offer, but some reckon it was a stepping stone towards making a counter-offer for the music firm, with some saying they will offer up to 25 pence per share.
As previously reported, Universal made its takeover offer through one of its UK subsidiaries, Centenary Music Holdings Ltd, and insiders there say that it intends to keep the Group in one piece, operating as an autonomous unit within the Universal Music Group under existing CEO Frank Presland.