Billionaire hedge funder and board member of Universal Music Group Bill Ackman asked UMG to move its trading and legal headquarters to the United States from Amsterdam following the violent overnight attacks on Israeli soccer fans in the Dutch capital.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were attacked and “fireworks” set off overnight by “anti-Semitic hit squads” after the city's soccer team AFC Ajax beat Maccabi in a Europa League match. At least five people were hospitalized, Reuters reports.
Ackman, UMG's second-largest shareholder, told X that moving UMG's tax-paying and publicly traded headquarters from Amsterdam to the United States would have “high material benefits” and align the company with “ethical principles.”
“Departing from a jurisdiction that fails to protect its tourists and minority populations combines both good business and ethical principles,” Ackman wrote in the post that began by writing that he is seeking board approval to transfer her listing. Pershing Square in London.
“I have also started the conversation with UMG (on whose board I sit) which is based and listed in Amsterdam, about moving its headquarters and listing to the United States, which will offer similar as well as other excellent material benefits.”
Pershing Square Holdings, in which Ackman said his family has a 23 percent stake, owns 10.25 percent of UMG. Vincent Bollore, the former chairman of Vivendi, owns 1% of UMG.
Ackman said Pershing Square will exercise its “contractual right to have UMG listed on a U.S. stock exchange … and to achieve a U.S. listing for UMG no later than sometime next year.”
Ackman said UMG is trading at a discount and with limited liquidity in part because its primary listing is on Amsterdam's Euronext exchange rather than the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. It is also not eligible for inclusion in the S&P 500 or other US bellwether indices
“We will fix this. Now is a good and opportune time to do so,” Ackman wrote.
UMG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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