Talking of rewriting the CMU Guide To The Major Record Companies, Enders Analysis, who know about these things, apparently, reckon that an EMI Warner merger is now inevitable.
As previously reported, talk of a merger between the two major record companies has been around for years now - in fact most eyes were on a possible EMI Warner deal when Sony and BMG suddenly announced their merger intentions a couple of years back. Arguably the SonyBMG merger made an EMI Warner partnership more inevitable, because both Universal Music and SonyBMG are now so much bigger than either EMI or Warner, the two smaller majors may need to join forces to compete long term. However, an EMI Warner deal would need backing from EU competition authorities. The controversies surrounding the EU's decision to allow the SonyBMG merger to go ahead, a decision still being fought by the independent sector, coupled with the fact that the EU has blocked an EMI Warner merger before, might put off bosses at EMI and Warner from even trying.
Except that Enders believe that the EU would have approve the merger to ensure the stability of the music business. They reckon a merger would save EMI and Warners $300 million, enabling the new company to better compete with Universal and SonyBMG in a three horse race.
Should that merger go ahead Enders reckon the deal would need to be a takeover from one side rather than a true joint venture - an opinion possibly based on the much reported executive tensions that have come about over at SonyBMG, where parent companies Sony Corp and Bertelsmann have an equal share of the merged company. Enders also reckon that such a deal would give Warner boss Edgar Bronfman Jnr and his investment backers a good opportunity to bail out, having made a suitable profit from their latest dabblings in the music business. Should that happen - ie EMI buys out Warner - you might end up with the interesting situation whereby, despite the fact that the top level operations of most of the major record companies are based in America, none of the majors are actually owned by US companies.