One of the world's best-selling music artists of all time, Shawn Corey Carter popularly known as Jay Z is set to become the next big digital music mogul after making a $56m bid for Aspiro, the Scandinavian company behind streaming services WiMP and Tidal.
Project Panther, that is owned by Jay-Z’s S. Carter Enterprises, has bid 464 million Krona (that’s around $56 million) to buy a Nasdaq Stockholm-floated association outright, according to a release. A understanding is theme to shareholder agreement but, with Aspiro’s house of directors unanimously recommending that a offer is accepted, a execution seems imminent.
WiMP is accessible in a handful of European markets — Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland and Sweden — while Tidal offers a “higher fidelity” service, that boasts a higher quality of sound than to the likes of Spotify, Rdio and Deezer’s services. Available in a UK and a U.S. given Oct 2014, Tidal is labelled at $20 per month, that is around double a categorical competition.
In Aspiro’s last public financial statements, it said that WiMP had 512,000 paying subscribers, with 20,000 paying for its more expensive HiFi version that offers higher-quality streams for twice the monthly cost.
According to Aspiro, it began talks with Jay Z’s company in December – the same month that Project Panther was incorporated as a company in the UK. Aspiro’s board has published a press release welcoming the offer.
“The independent bid committee is of the opinion that Panther, indirectly owned by SCE and controlled by Shawn Carter, possesses the proprietary relationships, industry knowledge, as well as economic strength and the necessary commitment in order to realise Aspiro’s strategic plan of expanding the company’s business and brand globally.”
Apple is expected to relaunch Beats Music under its iTunes brand in the spring; Spotify is reportedly raising $500m of new funding to fuel its growth; and Google will surely turn the throttle up on its twin Google Play All Access and YouTube Music Key services this year too.
Image credit: NYPost
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| Jay Z |
WiMP is accessible in a handful of European markets — Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland and Sweden — while Tidal offers a “higher fidelity” service, that boasts a higher quality of sound than to the likes of Spotify, Rdio and Deezer’s services. Available in a UK and a U.S. given Oct 2014, Tidal is labelled at $20 per month, that is around double a categorical competition.
In Aspiro’s last public financial statements, it said that WiMP had 512,000 paying subscribers, with 20,000 paying for its more expensive HiFi version that offers higher-quality streams for twice the monthly cost.
According to Aspiro, it began talks with Jay Z’s company in December – the same month that Project Panther was incorporated as a company in the UK. Aspiro’s board has published a press release welcoming the offer.
“The independent bid committee is of the opinion that Panther, indirectly owned by SCE and controlled by Shawn Carter, possesses the proprietary relationships, industry knowledge, as well as economic strength and the necessary commitment in order to realise Aspiro’s strategic plan of expanding the company’s business and brand globally.”
Apple is expected to relaunch Beats Music under its iTunes brand in the spring; Spotify is reportedly raising $500m of new funding to fuel its growth; and Google will surely turn the throttle up on its twin Google Play All Access and YouTube Music Key services this year too.
Image credit: NYPost
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