Sony Music disburses $750 mn to artistes
Los Angeles, Aug 19 : Sony Music has begun to distribute the $750 million in profit it collected from the April sale of 50 per cent of its Spotify shares to the artistes and distributed labels within the Sony system.
Sony Music executives are calling the disbursement the "Spotify windfall", reports variety.com.
Sony, which held 5.7 per cent of Spotify's stock when the streaming service went public, will not count the funds against the artists' and label's unrecouped earnings.
It will be apportioned according to individual artiste and label contract terms and based on earnings over the last 10 years a" or since Sony's initial investment in the Swedish streaming upstart a" divisible against Sony's own revenues from the Spotify stock gain for that time period.
The cheques will arrive by the end of August as Sony had previously stated its commitment to sharing the sum with artists and distributed labels, variety.com reported.
Is this "off-cycle" payment essentially a gift?
"It's a completely voluntary payment," said Maverick's Larry Rudolph, whose management clients include Britney Spears, Aerosmith and Pitbull.
"In other words, had Sony not done this, nobody really could have complained. Theoretically, Sony got this equity on its own. But of course, they've recognized the fact that they couldn't have gotten it but for the artistes.
"And they made a wonderful decision to voluntarily share the wealth, which is rare in the music industry. So, I commend them highly on their decision."
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Rupee hits all-time low for second time in a week
Mumbai (PTI): The rupee depreciated 31 paise to settle at 91.99 against the US dollar on Wednesday, touching the lowest closing level for the second time in less than a week, amid increased month-end demand for the greenback.
Forex traders said the rupee opened higher as the US dollar index softened and a long-awaited trade breakthrough with Europe offered quiet reassurance. However, increased month-end demand for the American currency as well as the ongoing geopolitical tensions dented investors' sentiments.
At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 91.60 and touched an early high of 91.50, but pared all the gains to touch an intra-day low of 91.99 against the greenback.
The domestic unit settled 31 paise down, revisiting its lowest-ever closing level of 91.99 against the greenback. The Indian currency previously ended at this level on January 23 when it also hit its all-time intraday low of 92 against the US dollar.
On Tuesday, the rupee rebounded from its all-time low levels and gained 22 paise to close at 91.68 against the US dollar.
Analysts said the rupee opened higher as the US dollar index softened and a long-awaited trade breakthrough with Europe bolstered investor sentiment.
India and the European Union on Tuesday announced the conclusion of negotiations for the free trade agreement (FTA), under which a number of domestic sectors such as apparel, chemicals and footwear will get duty-free entry into the 27-nation bloc, while the EU will get access to the Indian market at concessional duty for cars and wines, an official said.
The deal has been dubbed the "mother of all deals" as it will create a market of about 2 billion people.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.07 per cent lower at 96.14.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading 0.43 per cent lower at USD 67.28 per barrel in futures trade.
On the domestic equity market front, Sensex jumped 487.20 points to settle at 82,344.68, while Nifty surged 167.35 points to 25,342.75.
Foreign Institutional Investors turned net buyers and purchased equities worth Rs 480.26 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.
