Citi Hires PwC for EMI Takeover

NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTE: Citigroup spent more than £1.4 million with Pricewaterhouse-Coopers on accountants and legal advice in only seven weeks before it seized control of record label EMI from Guy Hands, according to a report in the Standard U.K. The bill was for "pre-administration costs" between December 12 last year and January 31. The U.S. bank secretly hired the accounting group, which Hands was unaware of until after he lost control of the company. The firm’s Peter Spratt and Tony Lomas defended its fees, saying it "achieved a greater realization than would have been likely under any insolvency procedure." The accountants pegged EMI’s value at £1.95 billion, far below the £4 billion that Hands paid in 2007. EMI is thought to have £1.2 billion of debt after Citi wiped most of Maltby's £3.3 billion loans. Maltby still has £170 million in other debts. (4/20p)