Bill Ackman's hedge fund bids to buy the music label behind Taylor Swift and Harry Styles

• Bill Ackman is lining up a deal to buy the world's largest music company.
• The investor's Pershing Square fund submitted a $10.9 billion offer for Universal, which is home to Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny.
• It comes as Ackman prepares to take Pershing Square public.

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square has submitted an offer to buy Universal Music, the world's largest music company.

The investment fund offered a mix of cash and shares for Universal, which represents artists including Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Harry Styles, and Kendrick Lamar. The bid is for €9.4 billion ($10.9 billion) in cash plus shares, which would value the group at $63.5 billion.

It comes as Ackman is looking to take Pershing Square public, with the company filing for an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in March.

Universal shares jumped as much as 13% after news of the takeover offer emerged. The deal would see the group merge with Ackman's Pershing Square SPARC Holdings by the end of the year, with the joint entity listing on the NYSE.

In a statement, Ackman said the deal would help boost Universal's stock price, which he said had "languished" due to a combination of issues, including uncertainty over the 18% stake in the company held by French conglomerate Bolloré Group and the postponement of Universal's US listing.

Universal's share price has fallen by more than 20% in the last six months. In its takeover offer, Pershing Square also attributed the collapse to a failure to correctly value the company's €2.7 billion ($3.1 billion) stake in Spotify and "suboptimal" investor relations.

Pershing Square bought a 10% stake in Universal in 2021, and Ackman served on the group's board of directors until last year.

The famed investor, who has made big bets on tech giants Meta and Alphabet, is aiming to raise at least $5 billion by taking his investment company, Pershing Square USA, public through a dual listing.