Apple officially owns Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s Beats. Although Apple first announced the the deal back in late May, the company confirmed that all the paperwork is completed and Beats is now an Apple business.
Back on May 28, Apple confirmed that it was buying Beats for $3 billion, the largest single acquisition in the company’s history. That followed weeks of rumors, as it was widely understood that Apple was on the lookout to break into the music streaming business. While Apple had been reportedly developing its own product, the company just decided it would rather take the already successful new beats Music under its wing.
The deal also includes the highly lucrative Beats By Dre headphones, which have become popular over the years, despite their high prices.
“Today we are excited to officially welcome Beats Music and Beats Electronics to the Apple family,” Apple said in a statement Friday. “Music has always held a special place in our hearts, and we’re thrilled to join forces with a group of people who love it as much as we do.”
Bloomberg reported earlier this week that part of the deal closing does include cutting around 200 jobs from Beats. The company has about 700 workers, but there is some overlap between it and Beats.
“We’re excited to have the Beats team join Apple, and we have extended job offers to every Beats employee,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Because of some overlap in our operations, some offers are for a limited period and we’ll work hard during this time to find as many of these Beats employees as we can another permanent job within Apple.”
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