The future of EMI gets grimmer by the day and it looks like Citigroup is going to pick it up for a song. The label behind such names as the Beatles and Coldplay, which is in danger of breaching its banking covenants, is about to be handed over to the banking group which is the biggest creditor of private equity firm Terra Firma. It paid way too much for EMI during those boom years. Terra Firma owes Citigroup a whopping $5.4 billion.
One thing for sure, you can bet the music business will never be the same when the bankers take over.
EMI's fate looks all but assured after its desperate attempts to secure a licensing deal with its rivals Universal Music Group and Sony Music collapsed. They couldn't agree on the price.
It coincides with EMI now being sued for failing to pay royalties on songs by the Doobie Brothers and other artists. That comes after the label was successfully sued by Pink Floyd for selling single downloads of the band's concept albums.
As the New York Times' DealBook blog reports, the failure of the rescue talks with Sony and Universal means Citigroup is more likely to take over EMI in June.
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