iWorld
T-Series ventures into digital space with web series, films
MUMBAI: After proving to be the mogul of music industry and establishing themselves a successful film studio, T-Series is all set to enter the digital space with web series and web films. Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series along with producing films and music videos have ventured out into locking scripts for web-shows and web-films. With growing demand for digital content, the production house has decided to expand their avenues and explore a new yet a familiar territory of digital space. The new venture will be headed by one of the oldest confidante of T-Series, Vinod Bhanushali, who is currently the president- media, marketing, publishing (TV) and music acquisitions at T-Series.
Speaking on the expansion, head honcho of T-Series, Bhushan Kumar says, “This is the time to expand into digital space with shows and films. There exists a huge audience across the globe that you reach out to with this medium. Web-shows and web-films have an audience for all kinds of genres of storytelling and different languages as well. Along with producing films, we want to create content for digital space and give a platform for new directors and storytellers.”
Bhanushali, who has worked with T-Series for around two decades, along with his team has already started working on scripts and pre-production of few series and films. T-Series is already working with digital platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Zee5 and other such platforms for digital distribution of their home productions. Speaking on his new role, Vinod Bhanushali, says, “Digital viewership is growing at a rapid speed and is a huge platform that needed to be tapped by us. Web shows and films has its own set of audience and is a huge market as everyone – all ages, races, languages, community across the world are hooked on to it. There are some stories that are not meant for the 70 mm screen yet they are needed to be told. They are commercial yet strong content films. With a new space that has evolved, web-shows and web-films have become a huge demand which is tested and proven to be successful. We have a lot of scripts coming to us every day and many of them are a perfect fit to this medium. We want to give a chance to these storytellers to bring forth their stories. T-Series will now become a platform to produce these stories and associate with our existing digital platforms to release our content.”
Music has always been an important aspect of all T-Series films. Even with the new space which will explore fiction, non-fiction stories on digital platform, music will still be a very integral part.
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.
