Evan Tindell on X
Finally got a chance to go through the $UMG earnings... Obviously, a disappointment on revenue growth and margins, which saw the stock drop like 20%. Subscription revenue was 6.7% organically, and the street was looking for >9%. So, a big miss. Still, I think things should improve. Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and YouTube music have all raised prices this year, and a portion of that will go to UMG. CFO Matt Ellis said on the call that these prices and "better market share to start the third quarter" make them "cautiously optimistic" (really sticking his neck out there!!) that growth will improve in H2 of 2026. Interestingly, Warner Music $WMG managed to grow revenue 12% in CC and adjusted OIBDA by 24%, so clearly this is a UMG-only problem, at least for this quarter. $UMG trades at 14x earnings on a NTM basis now... this seems pretty reasonable if not downright cheap for a company that has grown EBIT from EUR 1b in 2019 to around 2b today (11% organic EBITDA CAGR). We own this through Bollore, which currently has an NAV of just above 11 EUR by my calculation vs a last price of under 4 EUR. Notably, JPM thinks new AI tiers in Spotify and Apple Music will drive ARPU growth of 300 bps per year. Their price target was 48 EUR prior to the recent earnings release...
