저자: 진행자미상 · 외국인
요약 보기
유니버설뮤직그룹(UMG)은 음악 녹음·출판·머천다이징 1위의 독보적 사업자라는 결론. 빌 애크먼이 PSTH SPAC을 통해 UMG 지분 인수를 시도했으나 Vivendi와의 법적 구조 문제로 무산되었고, 이후 자신의 헤지펀드로 투자했으며 PSTH는 청산한다는 내용. 사업 구조: 녹음 사업이 매출의 약 80%를 차지하며 구독·스트리밍이 핵심 성장동력(연 약 20% 성장), 시장점유율은 약 30%로 소니·워너보다 큼. 성장 요인: 아티스트 존중 이미지와 글로벌 도달력, 분산된 레이블 구조가 아티스트 확보에 유리. 재무: 순부채는 EBITDA 대비 약 1.2배로 안정적이며, 경영진은 높은 한 자릿수 매출 성장, 중반대 EBITDA 마진, 이익의 약 50% 배당을 제시. 다만 영업현금흐름은 콘텐츠·카탈로그 투자로 변동성이 큼. 우려 요인: 소니의 점유율 확대 속도가 더 빠른 점, 유로 약세가 실적에 일부 우호적으로 작용하는 점. 밸류에이션: 현재 시가총액 약 380억 유로(애크먼 매수 시 약 330억 유로). 5년 후 PER 20~25배를 보수적으로 가정, 낙관 시 25~35배. 보수적 시나리오 기대수익은 저한자릿수, 낙관 시 100~150%대까지 가능. 진행자는 현재 가격은 매력적이지 않으며 약 20% 하락한 가격이 되어야 관심을 갖겠다고 밝힘. 15유로 적정가 언급. 전반적으로 매력적 자산이나 현 가격에서는 관망 입장. 출연자 전망: 현재가 대비 매수 매력은 낮고, 20% 하락 시 매수 고려.
다듬은 글
universal music group strikes me as an unrivaled company it's not hard to see why when they are the number one in recorded music number two in music publishing number one in music merchandising number one in music-based visual entertainment with tens of thousands of hours of video so they are the big player it has attracted global interest from prominent investors whether or not it's from china with tencent to bill ackman who originally tried to buy a sizable stake through his spac which is pershing square taunting holdings or psth which was quite a volatile vehicle in the last year or two and that didn't work out because the legal structure with vivendi he subsequently in the last few hours announced that yeah he's going to be winding up that spec because he couldn't find another deal as good as universal music group which he ultimately did invest in via his own hedge fund so the stack the four billion dollars raised that's going back to investors however existing psth shareholders will be receiving some sort of warrant tied to the next vehicle that he's interested in but going back to universal this is just an exceptional business and you can see that they're winning when you could see for example the spotify figures four of the top five global artists you can see you know in youtube eight of the top ten you know this is you know talking about the number one hits in terms of songs so this is a behemoth and why are they able to get the artist to sign with them and the reason why is number one i'd argue is because they are the biggest player you can see they have around 30 percent market share you know we you see different figures but around 30 they are one they are the top player much bigger than sony and warner which are the next two the rest are usually viewed as much smaller independent players another reason why they're able to win the business of the artist is because it's viewed that they respect the artist here it is a quote from sting talking about how he he felt more comfortable selling his body of work his song catalog because he felt like this home at universal was it would be more valued and respected but also because they're so big they can help reach new audiences and help you know effectively continue the sales and continue the the listening of his music because they'll be approaching a wider audience over time i think another key aspect that sets universal apart is having this sort of decentralized talent acquisition aspect where you have it's not just the universal label you have many different labels under universal that are competing for talent where universal owns all these different labels that are effectively competing on behalf of universal so these are different brands that are decentralized having their own sort of take to acquire customers acquire the artists acquire the talent that then they partner with to then generate lots of money through for example 80 of their revenue is through the recorded music segment which is predominantly the revenue tied to subscription and streaming that's become a big piece in the last year grew about 20 percent that is the core growth driver of their business you can see downloads and digital that's down about 20 and you can see the vast majority of their revenue is now tied to the subscription and streaming so this is 80 of their business of which the vast majority of that 80 percent is subscription and streaming that said they do have these other core aspects like music publishing which is effectively licensing out the music rights to let's say tv shows or movies or merchandising and that's a big key aspect when you say hey we're the number one player we can help you not only reach bigger audiences but we can also help you monetize in ways that let's say some smaller independents won't be able to do because we have this global base where it's easier to merchandise it's easier to get your song in into that tv show and so when you look at this clearly an exceptional business the question is what's the right price for universal music group first of all big thank you to jake who ordered this video you can now order one too if you have a priory video request see the link in the description of this video if you're interested in having an unrivaled video made here on youtube so thinking about the value for universal music group first it's it's important to understand this has been a bumpy ride for the us music industry where you can see it peaked previously around 2000 subsequently declined about 50 percent because of digital piracy issues you know you had that whole napster thing but now only in the last few years you're starting to see that growth from streaming and that's also growing you know their own business looking at universal music streaming business you see streaming and publishing a little under 60 a few years ago now it's closer to 70 percent and not only is it helping them grow their business but not only growing their top line but it's also going to help them expand their profitability this sort of the streaming business is much higher margin business so their outlook as they discussed in their investment meeting last year is saying hey we're expecting high single-digit revenue growth we're expecting ebitda profit margins in the mid-20s over time and they're expecting to pay out about 50 of their profits as dividends which is nice to hear hey shareholders you're going to be getting a reward you're going to get rewarded with this growth in this business and it's also worth understanding this is a global business yes it does trade on the euronext amsterdam exchange trading under umg it's in euros that said there are some adrs u.s adrs that trade but it's most liquid you know in euros but it is very much a global business you can see the vast majority is north america but they yes they do have a european business but they also have asia latin america rest the world so it's not just a european business this is a very much a global business with artists around the world best-selling artists around the world and also i think a key sort of kicker that you get as a shareholder now is that if you think this type of business will be very stable over time which i think it could be i'm very curious to see how streaming sort of plays out through the full market cycle i think it should hold up but generally looking at this this is 1.2 times net debt for a stable for perceived to be very stable business you could if you wanted to be more aggressive you could lever that up to two to three times which that means they're either let's say borrowing money to buy or invest in new catalogs or they could be returning that capital to shareholders via buybacks or dividends um so there's a lot of potential there for shareholders that i think someone like bill ackman might push for especially now that he's on the board that said their cash flow isn't always smooth you can see you know for years their operating cash will actually decline partly because they were making some very lumpy content investments making these investments in catalogs making these agreements saying hey we will pay we want to sign up these artists and it's not going to be linear you know you could see some years it's going to be much higher than others and so one should expect over time it should be going up but it will still be lumpy now another key question i want to think about with this business is thinking about that market share you know i did call out how you know universal music is the top player around 30 market share but you could see with the filings for both sony music group as wars as well as warner music and it's also been talked about that the independents as well these are have largely been actually taking share over time particularly sony music group you know where they were the fastest growing major you know label you know music producer and so you look at this and you're saying well wait a second even if universal is the biggest if sony's growing faster should that be viewed as a concern saying hey are they not actually unrivaled is sony doing something special and i don't have a good answer for that so i would want to just sort of watch that to figure out like why is that happening now universal is still much much bigger but it's something i'd want to watch out for and it's also worth calling out like look for years the major labels had been losing market share to the independents now most recently they didn't so i want to understand that dynamic in greater detail why is it that they lost share in the past and will universal continue to let's say hold their share or grow their share in the future that's definitely something i want to focus on going forward if i were to be a universal shareholder saying hey how are you growing let's say relative to your competitors how do i think about the valuation and the return potential from here here' can go way higher way lower it all depends on sentiment and execution when i'm looking at this so currently around 38 billion euro business that's how it's valued looking at where this goes you know they are seeing a little bit of an uptick in their revenue growth partly just given the fact that it's reported in euros and the euro has been weakening significantly against let's say global basket of currencies so that might actually be a tailwind um you know if you hedge out let's say your euro risk in terms of just thinking about what the growth rate is um so looking at this business where do their margins they're not quite at this margin level yet you know i talked about the mid-20s ebitda so you need to adjust that for the fact that that includes let's say depreciation and amortization amortizing their content of library and so that means on an operating income basis it might be let's say in the high teens to low 20s maybe around they're not quite there yet they're closer to around 16 now so that's what i'm sort of penciling out for their operating margins you know long term um this year assuming growth of around 20 this year assuming long-term margins are a bit better than where they currently are also around 20 the growth rate that i'm assuming for the next few years keep in mind management had talked about high single digits so i'm giving them a little bit of a benefit of the doubt here saying let's say 10 to 15 part of this is also once again that weaker euro so thinking about that aspect what this means for this business i think a lot of investors previously assumed a much higher multiple for this business i try to be a little more conservative when i think about businesses and keep in mind none of this is financial advice this is just how i'm thinking about it but thinking five years out what will investors be willing to pay for this i'm saying 20 to 25 times now this is like a tollbooth on music so maybe you might think that it should really be let's say 25 to 35 times that would you know warrant a much higher return if you were to assume you know that that input in terms of what that end multiple would be five years from now i personally try to be more conservative looking at this and so looking at this various different range of assumptions we're assuming just slight margin improvement from where they currently are you know around 10 percent growth going forward which is in line effectively with what management's talking about and assuming a 20 times earnings multiple which does assume some you know effectively multiple compression you know saying hey sentiment gets worse for this business over time then you're effectively penciling out between you know price action plus you know underlying cash getting returned to shareholders probably a low single digit potential return but if you factor in maybe you get a better multiple maybe you're able to get better growth maybe you're able to get better profitability you know this streaming mix does result in much higher profitability then maybe you're talking about let's say a hundred percent plus return maybe a hundred hundred fifty return and a lot just depends on what do you think is that right multiple for this business you know five years out and how how do folks how do you think folks will think about this i think this is a long enduring asset you know i i think this is really valuable business the question is what's the right multiple to pay i personally i think i'm i'd be more attracted closer to 15 euros a share but maybe that's too conservative you know i'm still thinking about it and so look i think overall looking at universal music group this is a very compelling asset i can certainly understand why a lot of folks like bill ackman would make a purchase at slightly lower valuations he's he bought it around 33 billion euro valuation versus the 38 billion you know valuation now and so i think when he looked at that he's saying hey if you're able to get a continued high multiple environment in the future maybe he can you know break even at worst case scenario and make a lot of money in the upside scenario and so i could definitely understand that thought process you know looking at it i'm looking at it now saying yeah you're effectively low single digits to potentially high teens potential return if they execute in the years ahead they're able to continue getting you know margin expansion and there's also that sort of that added lever that i didn't consider with the hypothetical framework of could they let's say start borrowing more money buy back shares could that make it more compelling i'm not quite there at the current price i'd want to see it a bit lower maybe you know 20 percent lower price before i'd get you know super excited about hey you know i really want to i at right 20 lower and i i would get more intrigued personally but that's my own personal investment journey where you know regular unrivaled investing you know investing uh unrivaled investing subscribers know i like to find those sort of asymmetric bets where i'm like hey i'm looking for two to three hundred percent upside over time you know or 500 upside if i'm taking more risk and so i'm not quite seeing that here and i also you know i'm mindful of where we are in the capital market cycle where things are tightening so i want even more return you know for the capital i deploy so if you enjoyed and thank you so much for watching unrivaled investing
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