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Tag: private equity firm

  • Native Instruments enters into insolvency proceedings, leaving its future uncertain

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    Music hardware and software manufacturer Native Instruments has entered into preliminary insolvency proceedings, . This is the company behind iconic software like Massive, Traktor and Kontakt and hardware like Maschine+. Native Instruments also owns the brands iZotope, Brainworx and Plugin Alliance.

    We don’t have many specifics as to what this entails and what the future of the company will look like. We do know that an administrator has been appointed to handle restructuring and, potentially, to sell off existing assets. Native Instruments employs hundreds of people and their fates also remain uncertain.

    A private equity firm called Francisco Partners owns a majority stake in the company. It also owns majority stakes in entities like GoodRX and Verifone, among others. This isn’t the first time Native Instruments has been forced into major restructuring. The company experienced plenty of layoffs and uncertainty before being purchased by private equity.

    Again, we have no idea how this will shake out. It’s possible that new investors will jump on board and it goes back to business as usual. It’s also possible everything will be scrapped for parts and sold to the highest bidder.

    We do know that subsidiary Plugin Alliance seems to be unaffected. It issued a statement on Facebook saying that it isn’t involved with the proceedings and that operations will continue as normal. This means new plugins will be released, along with updates for current software.

    Everything else is still up in the air. This is troubling for those who have heavily invested in the company’s ecosystem of products. I’m one of them. Any hope I had for a just went out the window.

    If the company’s robust line of software goes up for sale, Akai is likely the best bet. It has already begun incorporating .

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    Lawrence Bonk

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  • Trump’s TikTok deal will give control to a group of US investors, report says

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    The plan to “save” TikTok is starting to come into focus. On Tuesday The Wall Street Journal reported more details about a deal between the US and China as the two sides are apparently “finalizing” specifics of the arrangement.

    According to the report, TikTok’s US business will be owned primarily by a group of US investors, which will have a “roughly” 80 percent stake in the entity. The group includes longtime TikTok partner Oracle, as well as Silicon Valley VC firm Andreesen Horowitz and the private equity firm Silver Lake. Chinese shareholders will have a minority stake that keeps their ownership under the 20 percent threshold required by law. The US government will also reportedly get to choose one board member for the “American-dominated” body.

    Reports about such an arrangement have been swirling for months, with President Donald Trump saying that a deal could be “about two weeks” away. It seems that Chinese officials have finally signed off on the new arrangement, with a Chinese regulator saying earlier this week that the new US version of TikTok to use the Chinese algorithm.

    Now, The Wall Street Journal reports that “TikTok engineers will re-create” the app’s algorithm for a brand new TikTok app using technology licensed from ByteDance. The company is reportedly testing the new app. Oracle will oversee US user data for the operation; TikTok and Oracle have partnered on data security following previous negotiations between the company and the US government.

    Even though a final deal is apparently close, it could still take some time before it’s finalized. In the meantime, Trump extended the deadline that would have banned the current version of the app in the US . On Tuesday he told reporters at the White House he planned to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday “to confirm everything.”

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    Karissa Bell

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