EMI was one of the world's four largest major music labels. It was largely taken over by the Universal Music Group in 2011 and has since been largely broken up.

The company was founded in March 1931 as Electric and Musical Industries Ltd as a merger of UK Columbia Records and Gramophone Company/HMV. In the same year, EMI opened the famous Abbey Road Studios.

Under the umbrella of EMI Group Limited were both the music publishing company EMI Music Publishing (now owned by Sony Music Publishing) and the recording company EMI Music with several sub-labels such as Apple Records, Blue Note Records, Columbia Records, Deluxe Records, Pathé Records and many more.

In November 2011, it was announced that EMI would be broken up and the “EMI Music” and “EMI Music Publishing” parts of the company would be sold separately. The music business, i.e. the main part of the group in the form of shares, was acquired for EUR 1.9 billion by the American Universal Music Group, a subsidiary of the French Vivendi Group and the largest music group in the world. (Source: Wikipedia)