Vevo owners mull sale options

The owners of music video hosting service Vevo are reportedly close to hiring Goldman Sachs to look at sale options for the company.

According to Bloomberg, citing three unnamed sources, Vevo’s shareholders are exploring options including the sale of a majority stake in the company.

Vevo is owned jointly by Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Google and Abu Dhabi Media.

According to Bloomberg, Vevo is considering offers from DreamWorks Animation, Liberty Media and the joint venture recently created by Peter Chernin’s Chernin Group and US telco AT&T to invest in OTT services.

Earlier this month, Chernin and AT&T said they would invest up to US$500 million in OTT ventures.

Vevo currently shows content from Sony and Universal and averages about 5.5 billion views monthly, with about 80% coming from outside the US.

Speaking at the Billboard Latin Music Conference last week Vevo president and CEO Rio Caraeff said that he planned to expand the service to 20 new countries and generate over half of the company’s revenues from outside the US by the end of this year.