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Business News Deals Labels & Publishers
BMG buys Union Square Music
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 4 November 2014
You might have thought BMG was finished buying up other music companies, but you were wrong. BMG has just announced it has purchased UK record label Union Square Music, a deal that also includes its two publishing companies, Union Square Music Publishing and USM Songs, and catalogue marketing division, Union Square.
Commenting on the deal, Union Square founder Peter Stack said: “The combination of our expertise in marketing and exploitation and BMG’s significant catalogues is a win-win deal for BMG, Union Square and all of our artists and licensors. BMG have clearly demonstrated their ambition to grow their recordings business and the addition of their infrastructure and international network will allow us to offer an even better service to artists and labels”.
BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch added: “This acquisition marks another significant milestone in BMG’s development as we seek to achieve similar scale in the recordings business as we already have in music publishing. Peter Stack and the Union Square team have established an unrivalled reputation in the music industry for their respectful, artist-friendly approach to catalogue marketing and as such are a perfect fit with BMG. We look forward to working with Peter to create an even more significant catalogue business based on delivering value for artists and rights-owners”.
Based on Official Charts Company stats, BMG reckons its latest purchase will double the company’s share of recordings sales in the UK, and make it the country’s fifth largest label, behind the three majors and Ministry.
