iWorld
Prime Video announces Barbie and Meg 2: The Trench premiere on OTT
Mumbai: Prime Video, India’s most loved entertainment destination, is bringing a double treat for movie lovers across India with the premiere of global blockbusters, Barbie and Meg 2: The Trench. Launching within a few weeks of their theatrical release, both the movies will be available to rent on Prime Video, for Rs 499 each. In addition to Barbie and Meg 2: The Trench, Prime Video Store offers customers the opportunity to rent and watch a vast selection of movies from around the world.
Barbie is a story about Barbies in the Barbieland, one of which is a stereotypical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie. When her so-called perfect days suddenly crumble down, she starts experiencing an existential crisis and starts to think of death out of the blue. In order to comprehend herself and learn her actual purpose, she must journey to the human world. Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, her kinda-sorta lover, joins along for the voyage. Directed by Greta Gerwig and written along with Noah Baumbach, Barbie became a cultural phenomenon upon release, and one of the biggest box-office successes of the year. Barbie is now available to rent on Prime Video.
A sequel to the 2018 film, The Meg, Meg 2: The Trench follows Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) who has been involved in fighting environmental crime while also assisting Mana One in investigating a deeper portion of the Mariana Trench where the Megalodon was discovered. When a hostile mining operation threatens their goal and pushes them into a high-stakes struggle for survival, a group of scientists must outrun and outswim the monstrous Megalodons. Directed by Ben Wheatley from a screenplay by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, and Dean Georgaris, Meg 2: The Trench, is based on the 1999 novel The Trench by Steve Alten, and was a global box-office success upon release. Viewers can rent this action-adventure on Prime Video from 18 September onwards.
As the first choice of entertainment for everyone, Prime Video offers an incredible selection of movies and TV shows from India and around the world. In addition, its video entertainment marketplace further expands the choice and selection for customers. Through Prime Video Channels, Prime members can purchase add-on subscriptions to an ever-increasing array of streaming services and enjoy their content on Prime Video itself. Movie rentals on Prime Video is an extension of its entertainment marketplace offering, and provides Prime members, as well as, anyone who is not yet a Prime member an at-home, theater-like early access to the latest and popular Indian and Hollywood films, including titles beyond the ones available with Prime subscription.
The rental destination can be accessed via the Storetab on primevideo.com and the Prime Video app on Android smartphones, smart TVs, connected STBs and Fire TV stick. Customers get a 48-hour window to complete the film once playback is initiated. Customers can start watching the film within 30 days of the transaction date.
iWorld
Bill Ackman makes a $64bn bid for Universal Music Group
The hedge fund boss wants to list the world’s biggest record label in New York and thinks he knows exactly what ails it
NEW YORK: Bill Ackman wants to buy the world’s biggest record label. Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund run by the billionaire investor, submitted a non-binding proposal on Tuesday to acquire all outstanding shares of Universal Music Group in a business combination transaction worth roughly $64.4 billion (around 55.8 billion euros).
Under the terms of the offer, UMG shareholders would receive 9.4 billion euros in cash, equivalent to 5.05 euros per share, plus 0.77 shares of a newly created company, dubbed New UMG, for each share held. Pershing Square values the total package at 30.40 euros per share, a 78 per cent premium to UMG’s closing price on April 2.
The deal would see UMG merge with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, with the combined entity incorporating as a Nevada corporation and listing on the New York Stock Exchange. New UMG would publish financial statements under US GAAP and become eligible for S&P 500 index inclusion. Pershing Square says the transaction is expected to close by year-end, with all equity financing backstopped by Ackman’s firm and its affiliates, and all debt financing committed at signing. The transaction would cancel 17 per cent of UMG’s outstanding shares, leaving New UMG with 1.541 billion shares outstanding.
Ackman has a long history with UMG. Pershing Square first bought approximately 10 per cent of the company from Vivendi in the summer of 2021 for around $4 billion, around the time of UMG’s listing on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange. He has since trimmed that position, raising around $1.4 billion from the sale of a 2.7 per cent stake in March 2025, and resigned from UMG’s board in May 2025, citing new executive and board obligations arising from recent investments.
His diagnosis of UMG’s troubles is blunt. The company’s stock has fallen around 33 per cent over the past twelve months on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange, and Ackman lays out six reasons why. These include uncertainty around the Bolloré Group’s 18 per cent stake in the company, the postponement of UMG’s US listing, the underutilisation of UMG’s balance sheet, the absence of a publicly disclosed capital allocation plan and earnings algorithm, a failure to reflect UMG’s 2.7 billion euro stake in Spotify in its valuation, and what Ackman calls suboptimal shareholder investor relations, communications and engagement.
The Bolloré stake has long cast a shadow over the company. Cyrille Bolloré stepped down from UMG’s board in July 2025 as the Bolloré Group battled the French financial markets regulator over its stake in Vivendi, which holds a further capital interest in UMG. UMG had confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2025 for a proposed secondary listing in America, but put those plans on hold in March 2026, citing market conditions.
Ackman has kind words for UMG’s management, at least. “Since UMG’s listing, Lucian Grainge and the company’s management have done an excellent job nurturing and continuing to build a world-class artist roster and generating strong business performance,” he said. But he made his diagnosis plain: “UMG’s stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.”
In other words, Ackman believes UMG is a great business trapped inside a broken structure. If the board agrees, he intends to fix that, loudly and in New York.
