Universal Music Group has begun an additional share buyback program worth EUR €250 million (approx $288 million).
UMG said on Thursday (August 6) that the program is capped at 25 million shares and is expected to be completed no later than September 10.
The repurchases will be handled by a single broker across the Euronext Amsterdam Stock Exchange, Turquoise Europe, Aquis Exchange Europe and CBOE Europe Limited.
The program will be conducted under the EU Market Abuse Regulation, and UMG said it will inform the market of its progress through regular press releases and website updates.
The program falls within the share repurchase authorization that UMG shareholders granted to the company’s Board of Directors at its annual general meeting on May 13.
UMG had announced the additional program on April 29, when it moved to double its buyback authorization to €1 billion.
That authorization combined the company’s original €500 million buyback with a further €500 million, which shareholders approved at the May 13 meeting.
UMG completed the first €500 million program, its first-ever share repurchase, in July, spending €499.2 million to buy back 26,707,529 of its shares.
That program had been due to run until no later than October 1.
It then used half of the additional €500 million authorization in June.
UMG spent €250 million on 14,156,285 shares bought directly from Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square as the fund exited its stake.
The block purchase followed UMG‘s rejection of a $64 billion takeover proposal from Pershing Square.
Thursday’s launch deploys the remaining €250 million of the additional authorization.
On UMG‘s second-quarter and first-half earnings call on July 30, Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis set out the buybacks completed to that point.
“We bought back EUR €485 million of shares as part of our first €500 million buyback program, which was completed during July, and €250 million from our second €500 million authorization to participate in the shares sold by Pershing Square in June,” said Ellis.
UMG has said it will fund the buybacks in large part by selling half of its stake in Spotify.
UMG confirmed in April that it would sell 50% of its Spotify stake, a 3.10% holding in the streaming company at the end of 2025.
The company banked gross proceeds of €403 million ($467 million) from Spotify share sales in the first half of 2026.
UMG has committed to sharing the proceeds of the disposal with its artists.
On MBW‘s calculations, the company’s artists could receive around $131 million of that money.
UMG‘s financial net debt stood at €4.131 billion at the end of June, reflecting the Downtown Music Holdings acquisition and its stock repurchases.
The company posted second-quarter revenues of €3.294 billion ($3.83 billion) on July 30, up 13.3% YoY at constant currency.
Adjusted EBITDA came in at €674 million ($783.8 million), a margin of 20.5%.
UMG intends to use the repurchased stock to meet obligations under its 2022 Global Equity Plan and/or to reduce its share capital.Music Business Worldwide