Warner Music Group Corp. passed on a higher offer from a group that included Sony Corp. when it accepted the $8.25-a-share buyout bid from Len Blavatnik, people with knowledge of the music company’s auction told Bloomberg News.

Sony, with Guggenheim Partners and Ron Perelman, bid about $8.50 a share for Warner Music, or 3 percent more than the $1.3 billion offered by Blavatnik’s Access Industries, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because the deliberations were private.