News After selling AWAL, Kobalt pays $89m to buy back equity from shareholders Kobalt confirms to MBW that it has handed over cash from AWAL sale to some of its investors
News Milk & Honey expands into Australasia with Sydney office led by Daniel Nall Management firm adds to offices in the US, UK, and Europe as it continues global expansion
Analysis News Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, Spotify, and the destruction of the all-dominant streaming superstar What the performance of Drizzy's new studio record tells us about a growing trend in the music business
Interviews ‘I don’t expect artists to have their s**t organized. That’s what I’m here for.’ Wassim 'Sal' Slaiby on his upbringing in Lebanon, arriving in Canada – and an amazing career in music
News Roberto Neri, ex-Downtown EVP, joins Utopia Music as COO Fast-growing music tech company now has over 100 employees – and is continuing to staff up
News Bill Ackman: Universal and Warner are both under-valued… but UMG’s the right bet for us Billionaire investor explains his rationale for paying nearly $4 billion for 10% of Universal Music Group
News BMG revenues up 9% in first half of 2021… and it has over $1bn of acquisition deals in play with KKR Recordings revenues were up 29.4% on the same period last year, says Hartwig Masuch
News Apple acquires classical music streaming service Primephonic Apple Music plans to launch a dedicated classical music app next year combining Primephonic’s classical user interface with more added features
News From Universal Music impressing investors to Olivia Rodrigo giving credit where it’s due: It’s MBW’s Weekly Round-Up The news that mattered this week – and why it mattered
Analysis News Warner Music has changed leaders in no less than 10 key international markets since its IPO. Why? Simon Robson explains Warner's strategy following slew of top-level changes worldwide
News TuneCore, which paid out over $400m to indie artists last year, has a new CEO: Andreea Gleeson Gleeson joined TuneCore in 2015, the same year it was acquired by Believe
News Kristen Burke named President of Warner Music Canada; Steve Kane exits company after 20 years Burke joins Warner from Universal Music Canada, where she worked for more than two decades
News Spotify is giving podcasters perks that will make independent music artists very jealous US podcasters can now charge subscriptions and download a database of email addresses
News Shodement raises over $13 million to fund advances for UK indie artists Sound Royalties joins funding round for UK-based startup's new A&R cash pot
News China is banning music that ‘insults or defames others’ in its 50,000 karaoke venues New crackdown on offensive music coming in October as market's industry power keeps growing