(Reuters) — Warner Music Group Corp., parent company of Warner Music Group, filed registration papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 11 proposing to raise up to $750 million in an initial public offering of common stock.
The company in its filing did not disclose the number of shares to be sold or the estimated price per share. Those details are expected in future filings.
Warner Music was bought from Time Warner Inc. last year for $2.6 billion by a group of private equity partners that was led by the music group’s chairman/CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr.
Stockholders plan to sell shares in the offering, but the filing did not say which stockholders would sell or how many shares they would offer.
Recorded music generates 83% of Warner Music’s revenue, and the music publishing business accounts for 17%.
The company posted a profit in its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 31 of $36 million, on $1.1 billion of revenue. A year earlier it had reported a net loss of $1.1 billion on revenue of $1.2 billion.
Warner Music said it plans to use proceeds from the offering to repay debt and for general corporate purposes.
Goldman Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley will be lead underwriters for the IPO, according to the filing.
Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch & Co., Deutsche Bank Securities, Banc of America Securities and Citigroup are assisting in the offering.
Warner Music plans to list its stock on either the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq, but did not reveal a proposed stock symbol.
