{"id":44293,"date":"2018-05-14T22:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-05-14T21:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=44293"},"modified":"2020-12-04T12:13:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T12:13:20","slug":"heres-exactly-how-many-shares-the-major-labels-and-merlin-bought-in-spotify-and-what-we-think-those-stakes-are-worth-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/heres-exactly-how-many-shares-the-major-labels-and-merlin-bought-in-spotify-and-what-we-think-those-stakes-are-worth-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s exactly how many shares the major labels and Merlin bought in Spotify – and what those stakes are worth now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The MBW Review offers our take on some of the music biz\u2019s biggest recent goings-on. This time, we uncover some very tasty documentation regarding Spotify’s past – and mull over what it means for the service’s present. The MBW Review is\u00a0supported by Instrumental.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Back in summer 2009, rumblings began to indicate that the major labels and Merlin had been granted equity stakes in the hot new Swedish startup, Spotify.<\/p>\n

Initial reports out of Scandinavia suggested that the biggest of those stakes was taken by Sony BMG, on 5.8%, with Universal on 4.8% and Warner on 3.8%.<\/p>\n

This was followed up by TechCrunch<\/a>, which said it had gained access to ‘unverified capitalization table information’ and could largely back up these figures.<\/p>\n

This, however, came with a slightly unsure qualification: TechCrunch said it believed these numbers were either “largely or completely accurate”.<\/p>\n

Today, MBW can finally put any doubts to rest: the numbers were wrong.<\/p>\n

Slightly.<\/p>\n

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We’ve just spent a day digging around on Luxembourg’s equivalent of Companies House – where Spotify remains established as a commercial entity. And we found a rather revelatory document amongst the deluge.<\/p>\n

It was originally published in December 2008, you can download the relevant part here<\/a>, and it clearly shows three important things:<\/p>\n