Hip hop superstar Jay Z was trying hard to avoid getting his words mixed up on Thursday as he faced every CEOs worst nightmare - a feeling that he's overpaid for a company.
A major legal spat opened up between Jay Z's $56mln purchase - the music-streaming service Tidal - and its former owners, the Norwegian media group Schibsted ASA.
It could have been a line out of one of his hugely popular hip hop songs, 99 Problems.
Jay Z snapped up Tidal a year ago when it was struggling. Some might say that was a clue to the extent of due diligence the company deserved.
But now the music mogul accuses Schibsted of having over-stated subscriber numbers at the time of the deal and is seeking compensation.
In a sharp letter to Schibsted, Tidal has said its own audit conducted shortly after the purchase in January 2015 has shown that the actual number of subscribers was well below the stated 540,000.
Schibsted has fought back claiming that the sold business had been listed and as such it had fulfilled all its financial reporting obligations. The Norwegian company also said that Jay Z’s holding company S. Carter Enterprises LLC agreed to buy Tidal’s maker, Aspiro AB, after conducting its own due diligence.
The scale of that due diligence is now at the centre of the corporate legal dispute and will not doubt bring into question how thorough the probe into Tidal's business model really was as well as whether the vendor had reported figures correctly.
Whatever the outcome of the dispute, Tidal is still in need of some Tender Loving Care. So what options are open to it?
To his credit, Jay Z has managed to grow the business. Even if it was the stated 540,000 subscribers a year ago, it is 3mln today. What is more, around 45% of that higher figure are subscribers to the company's hi-fidelity streaming service.
But that is still way behind other established streamer Spotify which commands 30mln paid subscribers in addition to many more free listeners.
It is also a quarter of what the more recently-launched Apple Music can boast.
So the relatively slow growth of the business has not helped Jay Z let bygones be bygones.
Jay Z has engaged his wife, singer Beyonce Knowles, as well as soul siren Rihanna in the efforts to boost Tidal's luck.
But there is a silver lining to all this. Tidal's unique selling point may well be its ability to generate exclusive deals in an effort to win over subscribers and boost revenue.
In that department, Tidal had some cheer this week when it shared the streaming statistics for Kanye West’s Tidal exclusive album The Life of Pablo.
According to Tidal, The Life of Pablo was streamed over 250 million times in its first ten days of release, which is pretty incredible, especially considering TIDAL’s position as by far the smallest of the big three streaming sites, alongside Spotify and Apple Music.
Kanye initially requested for the numbers to be kept secret after the album was released in February. But the revelations this week will help prop up Tidal at a dispiriting time for the firm.
Kanye has also previously said the record will remain as a Tidal exclusive, but earlier this week the Rihanna featuring track "Famous" appeared on both Apple Music and Spotify.
That's where the business model becomes unhinged. West may well have had good intentions to "keep it Tidal" but duets and the like can still seep out to the rivals.
Only on Wednesday Proactive Investors reported that Spotify has apparently raised US$1bn of debt finance as it battles online music streaming competitors and works towards a stock market float.
In view of the fallout at Tidal, one might wonder whether it acted too fast.
Elsewhere, on the bourse
RISERS
Medivation (NASDAQ:MDVN) shares jumped 23% to $45.98 after reports the company fielded enquiries about potential bids for the cancer drug maker.
FALLERS
SunEdison (NYSE:SUNE) shares dropped by 7.9% to $0.54 after the solar power company's spinoffs TerraForm Global and TerraForm Powerare were reported to now be run by a new "office of the chairman" following the departure of Chief Executive Officer Brian Wuebbels. No reason was given for his departure.
AIG (NYSE:AIG) shares dipped 0.9% to $54.05 after AIG's mortgage insurance unit, United Guaranty, filed for an initial public offering of up to $100mln. AIG had announced earlier this year that the unit would be spun off.