Sprint’s new owner, SoftBank, also reportedly offered $8.5 billion for Universal Music

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son just bet $21.6 billion on Sprint, but it wasn’t the only massive purchase that the enigmatic entrepreneur had in mind. His company also offered a whopping $8.5 billion cash bid for Universal Music Group, according to a report from The Financial Times. Citing several anonymous sources, the publication reports that French owner Vivendi allegedly declined the offer because it felt Universal Music was key to its future strategy, even though the offer was $2 billion to $3 billion more than Universal Music’s estimated value.

Universal, in turn, bought EMI Music for $1.9 billion just two years ago.

The New York Times also corroborated the story with an anonymous source of its own, and writes that the offer occurred about three months ago. It’s not immediately clear how a giant music entity would fit into SoftBank’s greater strategy, but there’s definitely a lot of buzz around music licensing as of late, as various players attempt to position music streaming services as the alternative to discs and MP3s.