No-hit wonder

10 June 2016 By John Foley Follow @johnsfoley

The British private-equity investor has ignominiously pulled his case alleging Citigroup misled him over the $6.3 bln purchase of doomed record label EMI in 2007. It’s all so passé. From high-priced leveraged buyouts to CD sales, the world has moved on. Maybe now Hands can too.

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Guy Hands has withdrawn his case against Citigroup over the 2007 buyout of music label EMI, his private-equity firm Terra Firma said on June 10, bringing an end to almost seven years of on-off litigation over the disastrous deal.

“Terra Firma confirms it unreservedly withdraws its allegations of fraud,” a lawyer for the firm told a London court. The company said in a statement that its “documentation of the fast-moving and complex events, and memories of these events after nine years, are no longer sufficient to meet the high demands of proof required for a fraud claim in court.”

Hands, the founder of Terra Firma, had been seeking damages of 1.5 billion pounds ($2.2 billion), alleging that the U.S. bank misled him over the EMI deal. Hands told the court that the deal had personally cost him around 200 million euros ($225 million).

Hands had previously tried unsuccessfully to sue Citigroup in the United States. A judge found in Citgroup’s favour in 2010 but a court later said that the judge had not properly instructed the jury and revived the case.

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