Our man in Brussels rarely has anything of interest to say to, well, anyone really. But he'll be keeping his ear to the ground tomorrow as an announcement is expected from the European Commission regarding their decision as to whether or not they will allow the Sony BMG merger to go ahead. Of course everyone now expects that they will.
Meanwhile, both Sony and BMG have said media reports of a post-merger jobs cull of over 25% of the two major's combined workforce is just idle speculation. Though this time it's not CMU that's been speculating, but the Financial Times.
The FT reported the 25% jobs cut on Friday - they reckon that means some 2000 jobs will go at the merged major. They say that BMG chief Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, who will head up the post-merger 'integration committee', wants to see 85% of those job cuts made within a year, and has set aside $350 million to cover the cost of severance packages. Schmidt-Holtz' committee will also consider various cutbacks in property, IT and administration to bring the running costs of the combined major down.