Apple’s expected deal to buy Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion is really about one man — Jimmy Iovine.
The tech titan was so anxious to snag the 61-year-old music industry veteran that it made one of its largest acquisitions ever in order to do it, sources tell The Post.
In the business, it’s called acqui-hiring — the acquiring of a company just to hire its key human assets.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, hopes Iovine, the head of Universal Music Group’s Interscope, Geffen and A&M labels, wants to blast the Cupertino, Calif., company into a new era in the music subscription streaming business.
Iovine helped the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs create the multibillion dollar iTunes download business — now 11 years old.
That model has served Apple well — earning it boatloads of profits — but downloads are now in decline and a new idea is needed.
Iovine is being drafted to drive Apple into the $1 billion streaming music business, which globally grew 51 percent in 2013, according to the IFPI.
Global download revenue fell 2.1 percent.
“The electronics are a drag-along,” said one music source. “They want Jimmy and they wanted streaming.”
Ironically, Iovine pitched Jobs on a subscription music service years ago in partnership with MTV, sources said.
Jobs said they had it all wrong and wanted to stick with iTunes, sources said.
“Jimmy is much more of a ‘Steve-type’ person and Cook is the operator,” said one source, explaining the rationale behind the hire. “They have no larger-than-life characters, and people in the music business respect Jimmy.”
Iovine had been trying to sell the business for years to both HTC and Sony, sources said.
Sony/ATV CEO Marty Bandier cheered the move, saying, “We look at this as a real opportunity to grow an interactive streaming business. Apple has finally arrived.”
Apple is expected to announce its eye-popping $3.2 billion Beats Electronics acquisition in the next week, with some expecting Beats co-founders Iovine and Dr. Dre to show up at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 2.
Investors were not initially too excited about the proposed pick-up as Apple shares barely budged on Friday, closing down 0.4 percent, to $585.54.
Iovine is still negotiating his way out of a UMG contract — but Apple is keen to get him on board as soon as possible to repair its relationships with the labels after failing to make iTunes Radio a success.
Iovine’s hire may threaten Robert Kondrk, vice president of Apple iTunes Content, music industry sources said.
At the same time, Apple’s acquisition of Beats music-streaming service may put pressure on Google to buy a music-streaming service of its own — with many believing Spotify, which is prepping for a fall public offering, being the most likely, sources said.
Google already has a big slice of the music-streaming business in YouTube and is readying a second subscription business through its leading video streaming site.
It also operates Google Play Music All Access, a streaming site.