Music

As I've always said, there are just too many labels.

Billionaire Bill Ackman’s hedge fund has offered to buy Universal Music Group (UMG) in a deal that values the world’s biggest music company at about €55bn (£48bn).

Pershing Square, the New-York based hedge fund, has made a bid for the business, which is home to artists including Taylor Swift and Elton John, with a cash and stock deal that would move its stock market listing from Amsterdam to New York.

Ackman said in a statement that while the company, which is led by the British-born Sir Lucian Grainge, had done “an excellent job nurturing and continuing to build a world-class artist roster and generating strong business performance”, its share price had lagged owing to issues “unrelated to the performance of its music business”.