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Private equity group Terra Firma are set to bail out London based music music firm EMI once again. According to the Wall Street Journal, top man Gary 'the Guy' Hands has gotten the all-clear from enough of his investors to fund the company - meaning Citigroup are not now likely to seize ownership of the major next month and put it up for sale. EMI must pay over £100 million in loan fees to the US bank next month, and must demonstrate how it will do so this week. As EMI has no money, that required owners Terra Firma to find the cash. Management there also needed to get 75% of their investors to OK them transferring yet more money over to the music firm, even though that means pumping yet more cash into the equity group's most disastrous of acquisitions. Last week Queen left EMI for Universal in a deal thought to be worth tens of milions of pounds. Earlier this year Sir Paul MCartney took his solo and Wings back catalogue to Concord Music. Hands had secured commitments from his financial backers to the tune of £105 million, which is apparently enough, even though it was widely reported EMI must pay Citigroup £120 million. However, he still needed the OK from enough of those investors who were not actively contributing this time round to continue supporting the music firm. The deadline for votes was reportedly Monday and, according to the WSJ, enough votes went in Hands' favour. Presumably enough Terra Firma investors believe there is a good enough chance that they can still make good on their original EMI investment, eventually, that now is not the right time to cut their losses and let Citigroup take control. Of course, Hands had wanted to raise £360 million, so that EMI had next year's loan fee payment already covered, and so a mooted hole in the pension fund could be plugged. Terra Firma chiefs had told their investors that EMI needed to be able to demonstrate two to three years of relative financial security in order to sell a multi-million dollar licence-come-distribution deal for the major's recordings catalogue in North America. It's thought that, providing EMI bosses can show they won't go out of business this time next year, there is still some interest for such a deal at both Sony and Universal. Additional reporting by CMU Network
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