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Jeronimo Folgueira, the man who could float Deezer on the stock market

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According to the Wall Street Journal, the French music streaming platform could soon go public. His new boss Jéronimo Folgueira seems to be “the right man” to steer the operation.

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This could be one of the major deals of the year in the entertainment sector. If the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, seven years after a first failed attempt, the French music streaming platform Deezer could go public. According to the business bible, which cites sources familiar with the matter, Deezer would merge with the SPAC I2PO behind which we find the Pinault family, at the head of the luxury giant Kering, investment banker Matthieu Pigasse, very present in the media (Le Monde, les Inrocks, Huffington Post…), and a former leader of Warner Media, Iris Knobloch.

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If finalized, the deal could be announced in the coming days. The valuation of the transaction remains unknown. At this stage, Deezer, whose main shareholder (68%) is the Access Industries fund, has everything of a unicorn since it is valued at more than one billion euros.

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Unicorn

To pilot the operation, Deezer, which was founded in 2007 in a Parisian apartment, will be able to count on an expert in the field: its CEO Jeronimo Folgueira. Appointed at the head of the company a little less than a year ago, this Spaniard is in fact a member of the board of directors of Tio Tech, a Nasdaq-listed SPAC, which aims to help European unicorns access US financial markets. Exactly what Deezer wants to do. He also introduced to the Nasdaq in 2017, the dating site Spark NetworkS, which earned him, at the time, to become the youngest European CEO of the New York Stock Exchange.

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“From now on, we will refocus on a few key and profitable markets.”

Jeronimo Folgueira

CEO of Deezer

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Holder of an MBA from Columbia Business School and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Navarre, the man also has an experience of more than fifteen years in the media and technologies. In addition to the IPO of Spark Networks, which he quadrupled in size in four years, he held several management positions, including at Betfair, Bigpoint and RTL Group.

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“I decided that we were going to gradually stop our past strategy, consisting in extending our free offers in very many countries. From now on, we will refocus on a few key and profitable markets“, declared Jeronimo Folgueira at the beginning of March in Figaro. “It is the best way to achieve our profitability objective by 2024-2025.”

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To do this, the platform with 90,000 titles needs money. After having already raised 450, its CEO estimated, in the same interview, its needs at 100 million euros, not ruling out any assumptions to get there, including the financial markets.

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The Spotify game

An IPO should indeed allow Deezer to partly make up for its big delay on the leader of the sector, the Swedish Spotify which, according to the research office Midia, holds 31% of the global music streaming market ahead of Apple Music (15%) and Amazon Music (13%), Deezer (which is however number 1 in its domestic market), following far behind with just 2%.

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2%

According to the Midia research office, Deezer weighs only 2% of the global music streaming market

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The time seems right. The market is booming. According to IFPI, the music industry federation, the music market grew by 18.5% in 2021 to $25.9 billion, but streaming jumped 22%. It represents 65% of the market and has 523 million paying subscribers, including 180 for Spotify. Although present in 180 countries, Deezer only has 10 million, including five in France.

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CV Express

  • 39 years old, holder of an MBA from Columbia Business School.
  • 2003-2006: telecom media financial analyst at Lehman Brothers then at Citigroup.
  • 2007-2011: worked in mergers and acquisitions at Thomson then at RTL Group.
  • 2011-2015: general manager of Bigpoint (online games) then Betfair (sports betting).
  • 2015-2020: CEO d’Affinity (dating site) which will merge in 2017 with Spark Networks of which he becomes the CEO.
  • 2021: CEO of Deezer.

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