DEEZER raises €160m from private investors and enters into an exclusive distribution agreement with Rotana to digitally distribute Rotana’s music and video content in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Kingdom Holding Company and Rotana, led by Chairman HRH Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal together with Access Industries, Orange and LBO France have invested a total of €160 million in a private share placement which values DEEZER at €1 billion.
The new funding will be used to accelerate DEEZER’s successful expansion and contrasts wth Spotify and Tencent Music who have gone for public flotations to raise capital.
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Alongside the private placement, Rotana and DEEZER have also signed an exclusive long-term agreement to distribute Rotana’s digital audio and video content in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The agreement covers a fast-growing region of over 400 million people which includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
DEEZER will draw on its proven experience as a leader in France and Latin America to power up the development of music streaming in the fast-growing MENA markets.
Kingdom Holding company (KHC) is one of the largest investors in the world and has holdings in leading market segments, such as ride sharing, e-commerce and social media (Lyft, Careem, JD.com, and Twitter).
For more than 25 years, Rotana has been the region’s leading producer and distributor of Arabic music and has had a large list of acclaimed artists (more than 80% of superstars in the Arab World), together with an unmatched catalogue of more than 13,000 full-digitized tracks and 2,000 video clips. It also operates one of the largest TV networks in the region, with a range of leading free-to-air channels and also owns the largest Arabic movie and music libraries in the world.
‘The investment of Kingdom Holding and Rotana Group in DEEZER represents one of the many premium investments that we have always sought for our shareholders and the signing of the distribution agreement will move Rotana to the international arena’, said HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kingdom Holding Company and Chairman of Rotana Group.
‘Rotana is the world’s premier provider of award- winning Arabic music. We are now expanding our reach and distribution by partnering with DEEZER, a leading global digital music streaming service, to deliver our high-quality music content to an ever-growing global listenership in the Middle East, North Africa and other regions around the world. While this agreement is mutually beneficial to both companies, Rotana’s award-winning artists will reap the most benefit from this exciting new and expanded global platform’, said Mr. Salem Al Hindi, CEO of Rotana Audio.
Hans-Holger Albrecht, CEO of DEEZER whilst welcoming KHC and Rotana as shareholders added, ‘The new funding enables us both to accelerate our expansion in fast growing international music markets and strengthen our positions in key territories. The exclusive long-term distribution agreement also provides us with a unique opportunity to build future market leader positions in exciting markets.’
