Deal sheet
- Status
- COMPLETED, AND LARGER THAN ANNOUNCED. Universal Music Group announced a "majority investment" in Mavin Global on 26 February 2024 and guided to closing "by the end of Q3 2024". Two later primary documents put the completion earlier and the stake higher. The persons with significant control register records UMG SPV Holdings Limited notified on 31 May 2024 at 75 per cent or more of shares and votes with the right to appoint or remove directors, with Don Jazzy, David Bonderman and James George Coulter all ceasing as persons with significant control on that same day. The audited group accounts filed 18 August 2025 state that UMG SPV Holdings Limited acquired 100 per cent of the issued share capital on 31 May 2024. The register shows the whole change executed as a single batch of filings on 5 June 2024: PSC02 for the new controller, three PSC07 cessations, four director terminations, two Universal officer appointments, and an AD01 moving the registered office to 4 Pancras Square, Universal's London address.
- Type
- Acquisition
- Parties
- UMG SPV Holdings Limited, Mavin Global Holdings Limited, Universal Music Group, Kupanda Capital, Mavin Records
- Amount
- USD Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- CORPORATE CONTROL, NOT A CATALOGUE PURCHASE. What changed hands is the entire issued share capital of Mavin Global Holdings Limited, the UK holding company, not an assignment of individual masters or copyrights. The accounts to 31 December 2024 give the group's principal activity as the production and exploitation of sound recordings, and name one subsidiary undertaking: MG Entertainment Nigeria Limited, Nigeria, held 99.9 per cent through ordinary shares. Whatever masters, publishing interests and artist contracts sat inside those two companies on 31 May 2024 moved with them by operation of the share transfer. The documents reviewed do not itemise the catalogue, do not list artist agreements, and do not state which rights are owned outright as against administered or licensed. Turnover is reported by class rather than by right: digital and publishing 20,113,275 US dollars, touring and booking 10,332,966, ancillary 2,850,659, on group turnover of 33,296,900. The 2024 merger notification filed in Nigeria describes Mavin as active in the wholesale distribution of recorded music with repertoire available via Spotify, Apple, Tidal, YouTube, Deezer and Boomplay, but does not say whether those DSP relationships are direct or through a distributor.
- Territory
- Company registered in England and Wales; sole operating subsidiary in Nigeria; rights exploited worldwide
- Announced
- 2024-05-31
- Primary document
- Regulatory filing
- Sources
- Companies House, persons with significant control register for MAVIN GLOBAL HOLDINGS LIMITED (11517267). Retrieved 13 September 2026. · Companies House filing history for Mavin Global Holdings Limited, including the group accounts to 31 December 2024 filed 18 August 2025 and the 5 June 2024 batch of PSC, officer and registered office filings · Companies House PSC register for UMG SPV Holdings Limited, showing Universal Music Holdings Limited notified 9 January 2024 · Companies House PSC register for Universal Music Holdings Limited, showing Universal Music Group N.V. notified 21 September 2021 and Vivendi SE ceased the same day · Companies House officers register for Mavin Global Holdings Limited, recording the 31 May 2024 board change · Universal Music Group announcement, 26 February 2024, describing a majority investment expected to close by the end of Q3 2024 · Nigeria FCCPC merger notification, filed 27 March 2024 and published 2 April 2024, describing an acquisition of sole control by Universal Music Holdings Limited through UMG SPV Holdings Limited. TLS chain does not verify; page loads only with certificate checking disabled
Read this before citing: FOUR THINGS THIS RECORD DOES NOT ESTABLISH. First, the price. No consideration for the shares is disclosed in the register, the accounts or the merger notification, and this desk publishes no figure. The 5,000 US dollars per share paid for 347 new ordinary shares on 30 May 2024 is a subscription for fresh equity, not a price paid to sellers, and the 231,404 US dollars paid for the surrender of six ordinary shares of options implies a wholly different per share figure, so the two cannot be reconciled into a valuation. Second, the apparent conflict with the announcement. The 2024 release said Kupanda Capital "will remain a minority investor and strategic adviser". A shareholder can hold under 25 per cent and never appear on a PSC register, so the register alone cannot disprove that. But the accounts say 100 per cent of Mavin Global Holdings Limited was acquired, and the only non-controlling interest in the consolidated balance sheet is negative 36 US dollars, which corresponds to the 0.1 per cent of the Nigerian subsidiary. Where a continuing Kupanda interest now sits, if anywhere, could not be established from these documents. Universal Music Holdings Limited is recorded at 75 per cent or more of UMG SPV Holdings Limited, which leaves up to 25 per cent of that vehicle below the disclosure threshold; this desk found no document naming any co-investor there and makes no claim that one exists. Third, "ceased as a person with significant control" means falling below the 25 per cent threshold or losing the relevant rights, not necessarily a full exit. Fourth, the FCCPC publication page serves a certificate its chain cannot be verified against, so the page loads only with certificate checking disabled. The text was read on 13 September 2026 and is quoted from that reading.
On 31 May 2024, UMG SPV Holdings Limited acquired 100 per cent of the issued share capital of Mavin Global Holdings Limited, the England and Wales holding company (number 11517267) that sits above the Lagos label Mavin Records. The statement appears in the group’s audited accounts for the year ended 31 December 2024, filed at Companies House on 18 August 2025: “On 31 May 2024, the company became a subsidiary of Universal Music Group when UMG SPV Holdings Limited acquired 100% of the issued share capital of the company.”
The persons with significant control register for 11517267 records the same date from the other direction. UMG SPV Holdings Limited was notified on 31 May 2024 as holding 75 per cent or more of shares, 75 per cent or more of voting rights, and the right to appoint or remove a majority of the board. On the same day, four people ceased to be persons with significant control: Michael Collins Ajereh, the producer known as Don Jazzy, who had been notified on 25 January 2019; David Bonderman and James George Coulter, both notified on 27 September 2018 and both recorded as holding their interest as a member of a firm; and Bobby Jene Pittman, whose own PSC entry had already ceased on 27 September 2018.
The chain above the buyer is on the register too. UMG SPV Holdings Limited (15399764) was incorporated on 9 January 2024, seven weeks before the transaction was announced, and reports Universal Music Holdings Limited (05344517) as its controlling party from the date of incorporation. Universal Music Holdings Limited reports Universal Music Group N.V. of Hilversum as its person with significant control, notified 21 September 2021, the date Vivendi SE ceased.
Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission published the parties’ own merger notification on 2 April 2024, filed 27 March 2024. It describes the transaction as the “proposed acquisition of sole control of Mavin Global Holdings Limited by Universal Music Holdings Limited (through its subsidiary, UMG SPV Holdings Limited)”, and names MG Entertainment Nigeria Limited as Mavin’s only Nigerian company.
No price for the shares is disclosed in any of these documents. The accounts do disclose three related cash figures: a buyback of 257 Series B preferred shares for 1,156,500 US dollars on 22 February 2024; an issue of 347 ordinary shares at 5,000 US dollars each on 30 May 2024; and a one-off payment of 231,404 US dollars for the surrender of share options in connection with the acquisition. None of these is the consideration paid to selling shareholders, and this desk does not treat them as a proxy for it.
