Universal Records
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UMG's headquarters in Santa Monica, California
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Music & entertainment |
| Founded | September 1934 (as Decca Records USA) 1989 (as MCA Music Entertainment Group) 1996 (first UMG incarnation from MCA Records) May 1998 (second UMG incarnation from PolyGram) |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, United States |
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Key people
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Lucian Grainge (Chairman & CEO) Boyd Muir (CFO) |
| Revenue |
 $1.552 billion (2012) |
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Number of employees
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6,967 (2010) |
| Parent | Vivendi |
| Divisions | List of Universal Music Group labels |
| Website | universalmusic |
Universal Music Group, Inc. (also known as Universal Music Group Recordings, Inc. and abbreviated as UMG) is an American-French global music corporation that is a subsidiary of the Paris-based French media conglomerate Vivendi. UMG's global corporate headquarters are in Santa Monica, California.
Universal Music was once the music attached to film studio Universal Pictures. Its origins go back to the formation of the American branch of Decca Records in September 1934. The Decca Record Co. Ltd. of England spun American Decca off in 1939.MCA Inc. merged with American Decca in 1962. The present organization was formed when its parent company Seagram purchased PolyGram in May 1998 and merged it with Universal Music Group in early 1999. However, the name had first appeared in 1996 when MCA Music Entertainment Group was renamed Universal Music Group. The PolyGram acquisition included Deutsche Grammophon which traces its ancestry to Berliner Gramophone making Deutsche Grammophon UMG's oldest unit. UMG's Canadian unit traces its ancestry to a Berliner Gramophone breakaway firm the Compo Company.
With the 2004 acquisition of Universal Studios by General Electric and merging with GE's NBC, Universal Music Group was cast under separate management from the eponymous film studio. This is the second time a music company has done so, the first being the separation of Time Warner and Warner Music Group. In February 2006, the label became 100% owned by French media conglomerate Vivendi when Vivendi purchased the last 20% from Matsushita (renamed as Panasonic Corporation in 2008), the group's sole owner from 1990 to 1995 and co-owner from 1995 to 2006. On June 25, 2007, Vivendi completed its €1.63 billion ($2.4 billion) purchase of BMG Music Publishing, after receiving European Union regulatory approval, having announced the acquisition on September 6, 2006.
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