Bill Ackman walks away from Universal Music Group

• Ackman originally tried to acquire a 10% stake in UMG via a SPAC structure, before settling for a smaller position via more conventional means.
• The recent takeover offer was opposed by French conglomerate Bolloré Group, which holds 18.5% of UMG's equity and nearly 40% of the voting rights. UMG's board later rejected Ackman too, calling the price too low.

By the numbers: Pershing Square holds around 80.6 million shares in UMG, with the WSJ reporting that it's expected "to reap at least $600 million in profits, including dividends on the nearly five-year investment."

Go deeper, via Bloomberg: "The music industry has enjoyed a number of good years as the rise of streaming services like Spotify has boosted revenue and the value of song catalogs has increased. But the growth has slowed more recently, and the industry faces challenges from a new generation of artificial intelligence tools that can easily replicate music."