Utopia Music Sells Absolute Label Services Back To Original Owners  

Switzerland-based Utopia Music is divesting another part of its once-rapidly expanding European business, selling U.K. distribution and music services company Absolute Label Services back to its original founders.  

Terms were not disclosed for the deal, which was first announced by London-based Absolute on Monday (July 17). Under the agreement, Absolute’s leadership team — made up of Henry Semmence, Simon Wills, Debs Cutting and Mark Dowling — will fully reacquire the company from Utopia.  

Utopia Music acquired Absolute Label Services in February 2022 amid a frenetic two-year buying spree of 15 companies, including Lyric Financial, a Nashville-based provider of royalty-backed cash advances, and Proper Music Group, the United Kingdom’s leading independent physical music distributor, which provides distribution services for 1,000-plus indie labels and service companies. 

Confirming the sale of Absolute, Utopia co-founder/interim chief executive Mattias Hjelmstedt said the divestment was part of an ongoing “strategic evolution” that will see the company “doubling down” on its core service offerings of physical distribution and delivering financial services for labels, publishers and distributors. 

“In line with this refined focus,” said Hjelmstedt in a statement, “we believe it’s most beneficial for the Absolute team, led by founders Henry Semmence and Simon Wills, to reacquire the company.”  

Utopia’s sale of Absolute Label Services is the company’s third major divestment this year and follows several rounds of job cuts and senior executive exits, as well as a lawsuit from U.S. music technology company SourceAudio over a stalled acquisition deal. 

In February, Utopia announced that it had sold U.S.-based music database platform ROSTR — which has a directory of artists, managers, booking agents and record labels — back to its founders for an undisclosed sum.  

One month later, Utopia sold U.K.-based publisher Sentric, representing more than 4 million songs and over 400,000 songwriters in more than 200 territories, to French music company Believe in a deal worth €47 million ($51 million).

The past 12 months have also seen Utopia, whose motto is “Fair pay for every play,” undertake several rounds of layoffs, cutting around 230 posts in November (then representing 20% of its global workforce) followed by a further 100 redundancies in April. High-profile exits in that time have included former CEO Markku Mäkeläinen and U.K.-based CEO of Utopia’s Music Services division, Roberto Neri.  

Prior to the sale of Sentric in March, Utopia had a workforce of around 1,000 employees internationally. Billboard understands that the number has now halved to around 470, spread across 13 divisions or companies. Among them is Utopia Distribution Services, which in September 2022 acquired the assets of Cinram Novum, one of the U.K.’s leading physical home entertainment suppliers that provides warehouse, fulfillment and distribution services to a range of labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and [PIAS].  

In a joint statement, Absolute’s new owners Semmence, Wills, Cutting and Dowling said they were looking forward to continuing their relationship with all of their artists and labels and elevating “our label services to even greater commercial growth and success.”   

London-based Absolute Label Services was founded in 1998 and counts Alice Cooper, Mica Paris, Bananarama, The Damned, PP Arnold, Kula Shaker, Busted and the Kaiser Chiefs among its clients.