History of the WMG-EMI mating dance

HISTORY REPEATING? While we’re on the subject, the report late last week that Warner Music may make a $750 million bid for EMI’s recorded-music assets has mergermania buffs recalling the events of May 2006, when EMI offered $4.2 billion, or $28.50 a share, for WMG, three years after Edgar Bronfman Jr., Thomas H. Lee Partners, et al., bought the company from Time Warner for $2.6 billion. The two companies continued their heated mating dance, with each determined to be on top, until July, when the European Court of First Instance threw a bucket of cold water on the whole affair by ruling that the European Commission had failed to consider certain issues when it approved the merger of Sony and BMG. That didn’t stop Bronfman from making a run at EMI the following February with a bid of $3.8 billion, which was rejected. Three months later, EMI brass accepted Guy Hands’ jaw-dropping $4.7 billion bid. It’s been big fun for both Hands and EMI since the sale was finalized in August 2007. (11/19a)