Warner Music to cut 1,000 workers

Warner Music Group said Tuesday it would lay off about 1,000 workers, or 20 percent of its global staff, and consolidate business divisions of its Elektra and Atlantic Group labels a day after a group led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. closed a deal to buy the company.

Warner Music said Elektra Chairman and Chief Executive Sylvia Rhone, Atlantic Group Co-Chairman and Co-CEO Val Azzoli and Atlantic Records Co-President Ron Shapiro all would leave the company.

Bronfman said in a statement that the “painful changes” were essential to help Warner Music remain competitive in a ”rapidly evolving marketplace.” 

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Sources familiar with the company last week told Reuters that the new owners hoped to achieve savings of $200 million. Many music industry insiders have speculated that hundreds or thousands of employees would be cut from Warner's work force of about 5,300.

Media entrepreneur Bronfman announced the deal in November after Time Warner held unsuccessful merger discussions about the music unit with Bertelsmann AG's BMG and EMI Group Plc.

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The new owners said in a statement announcing the closing of the the deal that Warner Music is now the world's largest privately held independent music company.

Time Warner retains an option to buy up to 15 percent of the company during the next three years and as much as 19.9 percent under certain circumstances, according to the statement.