Warner Music Group Corp. general counsel Paul Robinson has worked on deals with Robert Schumer, corporate department chair at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, for well over a decade, dating back to the days when the record company was a division of Time Warner Inc. But that doesn’t mean Robinson has any inkling about Schumer’s musical taste. “I’m not sure we’ve ever talked about music,” Robinson says. “I don’t know if he even listens to music.”
Instead, Robinson and his bosses are interested in Schumer’s business acumen, a quality that was on display last year in a seven-month-long auction that culminated in the sale of Warner Music to Access Industries, the holding company of Russian-American billionaire Leonard Blavatnik. “Bob was extremely thoughtful throughout the process about issues like how to best value individual bids, possible tax liabilities, and public company responsibilities,” says Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music’s former chairman.
